Start the day picking oranges in an orchard, then eat them right there, among the trees, or drink their freshly squeezed juice, sitting on the terrace in the sun. Visit the João de Deus Museum House or the Castle of Silves, in the company of the Messinse poet and educator or the poet-king Al-Mutamid. And still keep a photograph, or even a Selfie, to demonstrate these unlikely encounters.
Discover how a processing and packaging center for oranges and other citrus fruits works, from which, every day, the fruit that arrives at the supermarket comes out fresh. Drink an orange beer, right there at the producer, and accompany it with a fregeneco (snack) of orange bread, cured sheep or goat cheese and orange compote.
Eat a wild chicken cataplana with orange sauce or end the day with citrus vermouth and smoked orange liqueur. Take a break from all this in rural tourism overlooking a fragrant orange grove.
These are just some of the proposals for Rota da Laranja, which was officially launched by the Municipality of Silves last Friday, the 7th, with a fam trip (familiarization visit) aimed at journalists and tour operators.
It was a day that started very early, in the orchard of Quinta de Santo Estêvão, picking oranges and eating them in different ways, and ended at the Castelo de Silves Tea House, drinking a vermouth infused with oranges and aromatic herbs , already the sun had set and the moon illuminated the night.
One of the great novelties of this Orange Route, which already involves around 70 partners throughout the municipality of Silves, is the application (app) which allows, with the help of augmented and virtual reality, to visit the eight key points with the help of characters, historical or popular (Al-Mutamid, João de Deus, D. Sebastião, the head of the train station from ancient times) , which really seem to be there, in the flesh, or even take 360-degree panoramic tours, to see, for example, the entire extension of a citrus orchard with several hectares, as if flying over it.
The application, called Silves – RA Rota da Laranja, developed by the company LARMs, is downloaded through a QRCode, present on the signs placed at the door of each of Rota da Orange's partners. The big bet is in augmented reality (AR), which consists of placing virtual elements on top of real elements.
João Monsanto, one of the parents da app, revealed to Sul Informação that the application took 'eight to ten months' to develop and fine-tune. “Before the summer we were already dealing with this and, in fact, it has been a very big job. Many tests, so that an application remains at the level that was intended».
Even so, and despite the app be ready to be used, “there are always things to improve. On top of that, there is a great desire on the part of the municipality to do more things and present more things, because there is a lot of heritage in this municipality. The ideal would be the app contain everything there is to do. In each place, in each place, to have an experience, an explanation… an adventure for people», added João Monsanto.
To help, there is also a website that offers a travel planner (trip planner), developed by visual shape for the Autarchy360 project and installed in the Silves Chamber website. Putting the dates of stay, the travel planner it can automatically suggest routes, indicating “where to eat, where to stay, what to visit, events and other points of interest”.
The planner also allows the visitor to edit and adapt the itinerary to their personal needs and tastes, and it can even be downloaded and saved for use anywhere, without internet access.
Application and travel planner they are, for now, available in two languages – Portuguese and English. But Rosa Palma, mayor of Silves, who accompanied the entire fam trip, admitted that there may later be versions in more languages, such as French, Spanish or German.
Historical heritage, wineries, restaurants and gastronomy, local shops and other places to buy products, orange picking experiences, visits to orchards and packaging facilities, accommodation are some of the highlights in both the app and not travel planner.
Speaking with journalists, the mayor stressed that the municipality of Silves, best known for its beaches and monumental heritage, «needed a tool, an instrument, to take tourists to visit the entire municipality, from São Marcos da Serra to Pear frame. The whole municipality is under the umbrella of Rota da Laranja». This is because, underlined Rosa Palma, “it is possible to tell stories about oranges, from the mountains to the sea”.
The mayor added that the project involved "involving local people in what is to demonstrate the best we have in our municipality". In total, there are already seven dozen partners involved, but the number will still increase.
One of the objectives of this new route is “to join the physical experience, of smelling the earth and oranges, with augmented and virtual reality”, explained, for his part, João Monsanto, from the company LARM.
A fam trip it began at Quinta de Santo Estêvão, where João Garcia and his mother hosted a visit to the orchard, where it was possible to pick oranges. Rosa Palma, with a bag over her shoulder, set the example and showed that she is no newcomer to these things in agriculture, whether in citrus picking or later, in planting an orange tree.
After tasting freshly picked orange juice and eating cakes and pies where the fruit was present, in the lounge of the beautiful Quinta de Santo Estêvão which also hosts parties, the visit then continued to the João de Deus Museum House (where the group went received by Hélia Coelho) and for the Costume Museum, both located in São Bartolomeu de Messines. It was there that the application downloaded with QRCode was tested for the first time. And there João de Deus appeared, at the window of the one that was his house, telling his stories about the place.
Lunch took place at Ribalta restaurant, in Ribeira Alta, on the side of Algoz. After one cocktail welcome (gin with orange juice), followed by lunch, with citrus fruit in the spotlight, especially in the main dish (country chicken cataplana with orange sauce) and sweets.
Then, still in the Algoz area, the group was able to experience, in the middle of the field, another of the application's potential, viewing, in 360º and from an aerial point of view, all the beauty of an extensive citrus orchard.
Heading to Tunis station, along a narrow road between orange groves, the group arrived just in time, by cell phone or tablets in hand, watching the (virtual) departure of an old train, hosted by an ancestral stationmaster…also virtual.
Nearby is the Grandparents' Farm, where, still barely refreshed from the lavish lunch, the participants of this visit went for a snack. First he toasted himself with the Marafada beer of orange, one wietbier produced by André Gonçalves in his artisanal brewery. Afterwards, we ate the cakes made by the mother, D. Encarnação, always with orange as the main ingredient: orange bread and orange folar, with jam…orange, liqueur…orange and tea…orange blossom. And it became known, from the mouth of Senhor Gonçalves, that the small, but very complete, ethnographic museum at Quinta dos Avós, which is being reorganized, will reopen in March.
There was still time to visit the Tereso Fruits, a family business that handles the selection and packaging of oranges and other citrus fruits, in bags and boxes, and ships them all over the country and even abroad. Guided by Diana Tereso Ferreira, it was the opportunity to learn more about the fruit treatment process, using state-of-the-art technology, but also labor. A phase of the process that, for most people, overlooks and has something fascinating about it. One more visit point to add to the Orange Route.
With the sun almost setting, all that was left was to head to Silves Castle. Where, through the archaeological ruins of the Palácio das Varandas or in the red sandstone turrets, it was possible to find the poet-king Al-Mutamid, who spoke of his time and his stories. There were even those, like Mayor Rosa Palma, who took the opportunity to take a photograph accompanied by this and other virtual historical characters. It could even have been a Selfie… Another fun feature of the new app.
There, in the Tea house that exists in its interior, the group was received by José Sales and Miguel Vieira. In addition to more sweets with oranges, first a ice tea homemade (obviously with citrus fruits), very fresh and pleasant, then a vermouth with orange infusion and aromatic herbs, produced there, as well as an orange liqueur that, in addition to not being very sweet, had the particularity of being served after smoking with herbs such as lavender.
A very pleasant way to end a day entirely in discovering this brand new Route of the Orange which, as it became clear, has a lot to offer visitors. National, foreign and even regional tourists can spend one or several days with a lot to do and discover, in a very original way and with the help of current technologies, from the mountains to the sea, in the municipality of Silves.
And because this municipality is the main citrus producer in the country (40% of production) and in the Algarve (60%), from 14 to 16 February, the Weekend with Flavor a orange, that will coincide with another edition of the Silves Capital of Orange Show, in that city.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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