Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Millennium BCP Bank
(Rua Dr Afonso Costa)
Has an ATM. Three other banks are about town.
Police Station
(
286 612 127; Rua Dr Afonso Costa)
Post Office
(Rua Alves Redol;
9am-12.30pm & 2-5.30pm)
Turismo
( 286 610 109; Rua da Igreja 31; 9am-12.30pm & 2-5.30pm mid-Sep-Jun, 9.30am-12.30pm &
2-6pm 1 Jul-15 Sep)
Just inside the walled town, this place has a town map, list of
quartos
and
free internet access. Also stocks brochures outlining nine different walks in the area, vary-
ing from one- to five-hour walks
(percurso pedestres)
.
Getting There & Away
4¼ hours, one daily), Beja (€10.80, one hour, one daily) and Vila Real de Santo António/
slower local Vila Real service (€6, two hours) via Alcoutim (50 minutes), which runs on
Monday and Friday. It also has three weekday services to/from Beja (€5, 75 minutes).
TOP OF CHAPTER
São Domingos
The ghost town of São Domingos consists of desolate rows of small mining cottages.
Once the mine closed in the 1960s, many miners emigrated or moved to Setúbal. But the
nearby village is set amid beautiful countryside and next to a huge lake, where you can
swim or rent a paddleboat or canoe.
The São Domingos mine itself is over 150 years old - though mining has been taking
place here since Roman times - and is a deserted, eerie place to explore, with crumbling
old offices and machinery. The rocks surrounding it are clouded with different colours,
and the chief mine shaft is filled with deep, unnatural dark-blue water, shot through with
it-doesn't-bear-thinking-about substances (read: contaminated). Locals have no fondness
for the firm that established the mines, which kept its workers in line with a private police
force.
A small museum,
Casa do Mineiro
(Rua Santa Isabel 31-33;
9am-12.30pm & 2-5.30pm Mon-Fri, plus
Sat & Sun Jun & Aug)
, recreates a typical miner's cottage.
Best visited with your own transport, São Domingos is 15km east of Mértola.
