Today we had two memorable stops on the way to the Algarve — a local farmers market in Setúbal and a stud horse farm. Our tour director, Pedro, said that some of his tour guests said they wanted to move here—simply because of all the fresh produce and seafood available in this market! Locals spend up to 30-40% of their food budgets in this market—I would, too!

I bought several local sheep cheeses here to take back home to Hawaii.

The farmers market was yet another place where we could see tilework on the walls.

Halfway to our final destination, we stopped at the Monte Negro stud farm, where we heard the owner explain the origin of the farm, and how his ancestor fell in love with the Queen of Spain. Our experience at the farm was almost identical to that described in Adventuress magazine, except that our host was a man, rather than a woman. We had the same homecooked lunch with the same dishes.

The story goes that in 1778 Carlos I, King of Portugal, tasked the Grandfather of Jacinto Paes Falcao, ancestor of the current owners of Monte Negro, to breed powerful Lusitano horses for military duty.

Jacinto’s Grandfather painted everything black and bred only black horses, unusual in a landscape of whitewashed farm structures. It was because he fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful Queen Consort, Amélie of Orléans, that he expressed his sadness in the color black, an authentic love story.

We were then given a demonstration of four horses of different ages. When asked about the horse “Fandi” and how often he studs, Pedro described it so nicely, “Fandi has his honeymoon about 10-12 times a year!” Fandi came into the arena and immediately rolled around on his back.

We then went into the farmhouse for a delicious home-cooked meal: pumpkin and almond soup, homemade Portuguese bread, Chicken Monte Negro, carrots and pudding with oil and honey. (Recipes are all in the Adventuress magazine article.)

I made a trip to the ladies room after the huge lunch and couldn’t resist taking a picture of the cute faucets which were actual pitchers coming out of the wall!