ESTÔMBAR
37.14615º N; 8.48722º W
Estômbar is mainly a bedroom community for Portimão, and many of its residents travel daily across the Rio Arade to work in the neighboring municipality.
Estômbar is one of the oldest parishes in the Algarve. The whiteness of its buildings makes it the most Moorish-looking settlement in the concelho. Sanabus (or "Shombos"), its name at the time of the Arab occupation, constituted an important inland center with a castle called Abenabace, captured by the troops of King Sancho I in 1191.
Because of its favorable position (up to the late 20th century it included the present freguesias of Ferragudo and Parchal along the Rio Arade), Estômbar was formerly a very prosperous economic center. Although based mainly on an agricultural economy, it also gained importance and wealth with the development of the salt industry and of trade on the Rio Arade. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it also was a center of fish canning which led to urban growth, especially near the river bank. Today its economic life is mostly tied to the support of the tourist industry (e.g., civil construction and public works).
It was the seat of its own civil parish of Estômbar, but in 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Estômbar e Parchal.
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SITIO DAS FONTES
37.16279º N; 8.48594º W
The Parque Municipal das Fontes (the Municipal Park of the Springs), or Fontes de Estômbar (The Estômbar Springs), is a park surrounding a major spring situated on the left bank of the estuary of the Arade River, north of the town of Estômbar, in Lagoa Municipality.
The park, formally created in 1989, consists of about de 18 ha (180.000 m2) and is an important ecosystem site reserved for those interested in nature. The use of the area began as a picnic site, overlooking the Arade River as it passes from Silves Municipality down to the Atlantic. The park now has a restored watermill, open for visits, a reconstructed Algarve house, an open-air amphitheater, and an area for physical fitness exercise.
The site is also historically and culturally important since vestiges of human activities dating back to prehistoric times have been found here.
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