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FRDescription Odemira
Odemira is a Portuguese village belonging to the Alentejo region and sub-region of the Alentejo Litoral, with about 22 536 inhabitants (INE, 2015).
It is the seat of the largest Portuguese municipality in territorial extension, with 1 720.60 km² in area and 22 536 inhabitants (INE, 2015), subdivided into 13 parishes. The municipality is limited to the northeast by the municipality of Sines, to the north by Santiago do Cacém, to the east by Ourique, to the southeast by Silves, to the south by Monchique, to the southwest by Aljezur and to the west by a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. The southwestern limit, with the municipality of Aljezur, is marked by Ribeira de Seixe. The coastal strip of the municipality and the Mira valley to the village of Odemira is part of the Natural Park of Southwest Alentejo and Costa Vicentina. The county is crossed by the Southern Line.
The municipality of Odemira is characterized by immense landscape diversity, extending between the plain, the mountains and the sea, in a total of 1720.25 km2.
Conquered from the Moors by the first Portuguese king D. Afonso Henriques, only after the reign of D. Afonso III, who gave him a town charter in 1257, did it come to be definitively populated. From this historical past, Odemira has not kept any important traces.
Even from the castle, at its highest point, nothing remains, not even the name of the street that gave it access (Rua do Castelo), renamed Sarmento de Beires, in honor of this Portuguese aviator born here, who in 1924 left Vila Nova from Milfontes, in a small Bréguet, to Macau, where he landed 115 hours after having covered more than 16,000 km!
In one of the village's gardens, a curious painted statue recalls another person from the land: Damiano, an apothecary who in the 19th century. XV wrote a book to teach chess!
The charm of Odemira lies in its location on a small hill in an amphitheater, where there are very white houses facing the river Mira, born in the interior of the Serra do Caldeirão and, from here it is navigable to the mouth, in Vila Nova de Milfontes, in a course of about 30 km, beautiful scenery for walking, rowing and canoeing.
The region is very attentive to the preservation of handicrafts, with several artisans of basketry, furniture, ceramics and weaving.
This entire southern strip of the Portuguese coast, from the village of Sines to Cabo de S. Vicente, in the Algarve, is part of the Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina Natural Park, a region where rare species of flora and fauna are found and the only place in the world where the white stork nests on sea cliffs.