A ten-strong walking team from the Rotary Club of Silves is in the last stretch of training for a seven-day, 110km trek across the western Algarve — and the most determined member is 83-year-old Jim, the oldest of the group.
The walk starts on Saturday, October 10 in Monchique, the hill town in the Algarve's inland mountains, and finishes at Cabo de São Vicente, the dramatic headland near Sagres that marks the south-western tip of mainland Europe. The team will cover the distance in stages, and recently completed a final training walk along the route's closing leg — the 7km from Sagres out to the cape. Jim, who has been dealing with knee pain, tested that section himself and is still committed to attempting the full distance from Monchique.
The goal is to raise €6,000 for children in the Algarve who can't access early intervention services — therapies and support that many local families simply cannot afford. Jim says that since joining Rotary he has become far more aware of hardship in the region, particularly among young children and families whose struggles are easy for visitors and better-off residents to miss behind the coastline's holiday veneer.
For travellers, the story doubles as a tidy introduction to a lesser-walked corner of the Algarve. The Monchique-to-Sagres route links the forested Serra de Monchique foothills with the wild, wind-scoured Vicentine coast — a very different Algarve from the resort towns most people know. Walk leader Philippe has been running training sessions along different parts of the route, which shows how varied the terrain is: quiet upland paths, rural tracks and finally the clifftop trails of the southwest coast, one of Portugal's most striking stretches of shoreline.
The club is appealing for sponsors and taking donations through its website — anyone who has walked or holidayed in the western Algarve and wants to give something back to the communities behind it now has a straightforward way to do so.
Who's it for? walkers looking for a fresh route in a familiar destination, anyone keen on slow travel along the Vicentine coast, and holidaymakers who'd like to support a local charity doing quiet, unglamorous work in the region they visit. Even if you're not up for 110km, the final leg from Sagres to Cabo de São Vicente makes for a rewarding day hike, ideally timed for sunset at the cape.
