The village Azoia lies on a peninsula south of Lisbon, which ends in a cape with a mystical atmosphere, Cabo Espichel, where you look out to the sea and you can literally feel what the great Portuguese poet Luís de Camões wrote, about another Portuguese cape, in his Epos “Os Lusíadas”: a place “onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa” (“where the land ends and the sea begins”).
Wise people turned the wider environment of this cape into a protected nature reserve called Serra de Arrabida. The wonderful nature of this area invites for walks or bike rides on the plateau with its heath landscape, impressive rocks and caves as well as particular Atlantic plant and animal life including an area for bird watching.
The long history of this area shows that already the moors, who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711, used this area nor only to guard the coast but also for religious retreats in the caves. Traces of Muslim culture can be found in the little – now catholic – chapels on the cape but also just around the corner of Casa Azuloia.
The mystical character of the cape is such that it will not surprise you to find that the Holy Virgin (Nossa Senhora da Cabo) was seen there on a giant donkey arisen from the ocean. A church and deserted lodgings for the pilgrims (built in 1721) are still there to view. Evidence of the apparition was the trackway used by her donkey. Centuries later, scientists found that the trackways were in fact made by dinosaurs….