Santa Cruz

How long to stay?

A break is enough, half an hour to an hour, unless you split the long stage here. Most pilgrims walk straight through from Ameixial to Almodôvar, 35.3 kilometres, and Santa Cruz lies after 15.3 of them. For the church and a look at the signs of the Order of Santiago a short rest is enough, if you can get in. Whoever would rather walk the 35 kilometres in two days stays overnight, but has to clarify that beforehand with the Junta de Freguesia.

Santa Cruz in Ninja numbers

• 81.0 kilometres since Faro, 371.8 kilometres still to Benfica do Ribatejo (according to Camino Ninja). And the first place on the way that already lies in the Alentejo.
• 15.3 kilometres from Ameixial, 20.0 kilometres to Almodôvar. That is the split the official route guide suggests.
• 651 people lived in the whole parish in 2011, on a good 123 square kilometres. That is a good five per square kilometre, and the church still has three naves.
• 1955 is the year the church was placed under protection as an Imóvel de Interesse Público.

Arriving: over the Vascão into the Alentejo

From Ameixial the Caminho Português Central do Sul descends via Revezes into the valley of the Ribeira do Vascão. You pass the old water mill of Cascalheira and, with the river, cross the border between the Algarve and the Alentejo. In Monte Branco there are public wells; fill your bottles there, because the last stretch is drier and more open. About three kilometres further on the church appears, “encaixada” in the landscape according to the route guide, fitted in at a spot where you do not expect it. All around lie fields.

In brief: a pilgrim church in the middle of nowhere

An old Roman road ran through the Serra do Caldeirão, and finds show that pilgrims used it too. King Afonso III marched south along it in 1249 to conquer Faro and Albufeira. The church of Santa Cruz stands on this road. It was built in the 16th century, according to the route guide with money from the family of Fernão Mascarenhas, who around 1500 held the commanderies of the Order of Santiago in Mértola and Almodôvar. The bell tower and sacristy were added at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century.

The route guide reads its size as a sign that there was a pilgrim centre here: next to the church stood houses for pilgrims, nearby a Fonte Santa springs from a rock, which pilgrims visited, and with it go the ruins of the chapel of São Bento and the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Lapa. According to a popular belief, the hole in a stone slab near the chapels cures headaches. Where exactly the slab lies, the route guide does not say.

Cross and shell: what to see

• Igreja Paroquial de Santa Cruz: A Manueline church with three naves under wooden ceilings, a chancel with a star vault and a polygonal apse in archaising Gothic forms. The floor of the central nave follows the slope of the terrain and evens it out over two levels with steps. As a pilgrim you should look at the signs of the Order of Santiago: the cross above the portal of the main façade, in the keystone of the chancel vault a cross with two scallop shells, the order's mark on the sacristy washbasin. In the chancel there also hangs the coat of arms of Violante Henriques, the wife of Fernão Mascarenhas. We did not find opening or Mass times; the route guide advises phoning the Junta de Freguesia beforehand for a visit.
• Fonte Santa and the chapels: According to the route guide, the spring, the ruins of São Bento and the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Lapa belong to the same ensemble as the church. How you find them and whether the spring has drinking water, we did not find out; ask in the village.

Honestly

• No bed in the app. In the Camino Ninja database there is no accommodation in Santa Cruz (as of November 2026). The 2021 route guide mentions beds in social facilities of the Junta de Freguesia, by registration only. Whether that still applies today, we could not check. The nearest documented place to sleep is 15.3 kilometres back in Ameixial, the nearest private beds 20.0 kilometres ahead in Almodôvar.
• No shop. There is nothing to buy in the village. The only café cooks, according to the route guide, only if you get in touch before the start of the day.
• The church is not a given. Whoever reaches it without a call may find a locked door.
• After that comes almost nothing. Between Santa Cruz and Almodôvar the route guide names only Monte João Dias, where residents will help you, and a café in Guedelhas that cooks to order.

Ninja tips

• Phone the evening before. Junta de Freguesia de Santa Cruz: +351 963 713 025 or +351 286 453 119, 8:30–16:30; Café A Colmeia do Vicente: +351 965 836 403 (route guide as of 2021). One call settles bed, food and church at once.
• Fill up in Monte Branco. The public wells there are the last sure water point before Santa Cruz, and after that you need water for 20 kilometres.
• Plan a break at the Vascão. The valley is considered rich in species and fresh even in summer, with small pebble beaches. So the better resting place lies before Santa Cruz, not after it.
• In March there is a spring festival. Then Santa Cruz celebrates the arrival of spring. We did not find an exact date for 2027.

Onward: through open country to Almodôvar

Beyond Santa Cruz the landscape opens up: fields and pastures instead of schist hills. After 9.9 kilometres you come through Guedelhas, after 20.0 kilometres you reach Almodôvar, the first small town in the Alentejo with everything you need. Shortly before, you have to cross the Ribeira de Oeiras, after rain perhaps through the water. Camino Ninja describes the way through the Alentejo together with Turismo do Alentejo e Ribatejo.

Deep dive: A church for travellers passing through

A short read, in case you want to learn more about Santa Cruz. About two minutes' reading.

Too big for a village

When you stand in front of the church in Santa Cruz, its scale strikes you first. Three naves, a chancel with a star vault, and that in a parish where in 2011 a good six hundred and fifty people were counted, spread over more than a hundred and twenty square kilometres. For a village of this size a chapel would have been enough. The route guide of the Caminhos de Santiago in the Alentejo draws a conclusion from this: this church was built for those who came by.

The road through the mountains

Many came by. An old Roman road ran through the Serra do Caldeirão, and along it in the year 1249 King Afonso the Third marched south to conquer Faro and Albufeira. Pilgrims walked the same road. In the sixteenth century the land belonged to the Order of Santiago, and a nobleman named Fernão Mascarenhas held the commanderies of Mértola and Almodôvar. The building of this church is attributed to his family. Above the portal they set the cross of the order, in the keystone of the chancel a cross with two shells. Next to the church stood houses in which pilgrims could sleep, and from a rock nearby sprang a spring that was called holy.

What remained

The pilgrim houses are gone, of the chapel of Saint Benedict only ruins stand. But the church stands, under monument protection since 1955, and for some years now people with rucksacks and yellow arrows before their eyes have been coming by again. The village has no shop, but it does have a Junta that finds pilgrims a roof if they phone beforehand.

What Santa Cruz gives you

Perhaps this: five hundred years ago someone put a church in the middle of the fields that was bigger than the village needed, because he expected strangers. You are one of them. Sit for a moment in the shade of its walls, drink something, and then walk on to Almodôvar.