Relax at a canter

Directions to the small homestead she has created with her husband are an indication of just what constitutes ‘remote’. Drive for an hour or so north out of Faro airport, turn off the main road on to a pitted road, turn again on to less well-maintained bumpy surfaces, turn off again on to rough dust tracks, watch out for a dead tree stump among the desert-like landscape... and you’re getting somewhere near.

Talk about getting away from it all.

But once at the Alcaria Alta farmhouse villa she has had built nestled into the hillside, with the sun piercing through the clear blue skies, the sense of isolation and calm wafts over you as the tensions of home slide away into the rolling countryside around.

My wife, Liz, and I had come for the horse-riding, of course, and there’s no doubt the routine of the villa revolves round looking after the three horses that would become our good companions in the following few days.

The heat being what it was in mid-September, there was a limited amount of time that could be spent out and about in the saddle – between one and two hours at most before the sun drained both beast and rider, and even Ruth’s faithful little wire-haired terrier, Bom, who followed us everywhere.

And that was fine, giving plenty of time to explore on horse back the surrounding countryside of dusty tracks, open land, little if any tarmac road, and ample opportunity for the odd canter or gallop among the gently-rolling hills that stretched far into the distance all around.

Meeting someone else en route in such a rural setting was something of an event. Once, for instance, a sun-worn, ancient shepherd sat huddled in the shade of a tree keeping watch, biblical-style, over his small flock of sheep grazing what was left of the grass among what had become a very dry, desert-like landscape in the summer heat.

Very occasionally, a car heading for an even remoter farm might pass slowly, throwing up a cloud of dust as it passed, but the drivers were always courteous enough for the three of us on our mounts.

We were happy enough for Ruth to lead us out on our trips, not least because the terrain was difficult to keep a sense of direction in, but also to listen to her telling us something of the country she had come to adopt and the way of life she now led away from the hustle and bustle of the schoolroom back in Bradford.

It’s always interesting hearing how other cultures work, even when you think that modern times, with a new sense of being part of a unified Europe, might have flattened out many of our differences. Portugal, it appears, is still recovering from decades of dictatorial rule, with endless bureaucracy and paperwork, a keen police force and many areas of a less-than-affluent population.

Nonetheless, for the casual visitor, like ourselves, there seemed something of an old-world charm about the place, in its very rustic agricultural ways, the small towns where every house or building is whitewashed and cheap-looking to protect against possible earthquakes. Cloth-capped old men chew the fat over a smoke and beer outside street-corner cafes and bars, and the dusty roads which have occasional roundabouts stuck in the middle of them seemingly for no good reason (there being only the one road) – perhaps a result of European roundabout funding that could not be allowed to go to waste.

Without exception, though, everyone we encountered was pleasant, polite, maybe even intrigued as to what British people should be doing so far from the tourist magnet of the Algarve beaches.

Even the police, whom we had been warned might stop us on a whim to look at our passports and papers, were pleasantness itself. The officer who stopped us at a random roadblock immediately slipped into passingly-good English, chatted about our visit and wished us a good journey before helping to stop the traffic while we turned round – because we were heading in the wrong direction for our return to the farmhouse!

Should the mood take you, there’s always plenty to do at the villa farmhouse, helping out Ruth in looking after her animals, but it’s certainly not part of the holiday if you don’t fancy. We found ourselves cleaning tack, poo-picking in the dusty enclosures that passed for fields at this time of year, grooming, feeding, etc etc. All of which adds to the fun of a horse-riding break for me, and makes the early evening sundown drinks that much more enjoyable and rewarding.

In season, there’s a small swimming pool you could flop into, or plenty of books to read to while away the evenings, or you can simply sit and chat on the sun terrace in the warmth of the night-time air.

It’s totally self-catering at the Alcaria Alta, and we were happy to explore local towns for provisions in their supermarkets, but there are also several nearby restaurants you could try which, if anything like the one we did venture to for a late lunch, serve excellent fare.

One thing is essential, of course, and that is a car to get about. We took one full day out of our five-day stay to visit the largely-unspoilt west coast of Portugal, which was only about an hour or so away.

Unlike the highly-developed Algarve, there are quaint little seaside towns with glorious beaches giving onto the pounding Atlantic Ocean, and, at the time of year we were there, not many people about either.

We spent a glorious few hours relaxing on the golden sands of one inlet, watching the world go by and the tide creeping in, before heading back ‘home’. This time we took a detour through a gloriously-picturesque winding valley with breathtaking views at seemingly every turn.

Back at Alcaria Alta, we had two more riding days left, time to explore more of the rolling countryside and see some of the flora and fauna which, admittedly, wasn’t at its finest at this dry time of year, but which apparently comes gloriously to life in the two ‘springs’ that the area enjoys in the course of a year.

It was difficult to imagine the dry and dusty landscape that we trotted through blossoming into a glorious splash of greenery and colour, populated by birds of prey, wild boar, deer, storks and fine orchids that it undoubtedly does.

Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet of the area, the ability to roam relatively freely across the terrain astride Ruth’s very fine horses, and would welcome a return in the greener seasons to see it at its absolute best.