Agualva-Cacém beyond the suburbs

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Agualva-Cacém is a city within the municipality of Sintra, in the Lisbon metropolitan area, formed from the twin localities of Agualva and Cacém and raised to city status on 12 July 2001. Behind its modern suburban face lie a Neolithic tomb, a rare Roman quarry and a historic village centre that tell a much older story.

The name Agualva comes from the Latin aqua alba, "white water", a reference to the purity of its stream, while Cacém comes from the Arabic Qāsim, "the one who distributes". The first written records of Agualva date from the royal inquiries of 1220. Legend says that the stream's other name, Ribeira das Jardas, comes from an English crusader rewarded with land here by Afonso Henriques after the conquest of Lisbon, who measured it in yards; other versions link it to Bishop Domingos Anes Jardo, born here in the 13th century.

Start in the historic centre of Agualva, laid out around the broad square of Largo da República between the small Church of Nossa Senhora da Consolação and the Quinta da Fidalga. The manor, also known as the Quinta de Nossa Senhora do Monte do Carmo, was built in 1720 or around 1725, according to different sources, for José Ramos da Silva, head of the Royal Mint; its chapel, with a stone coffered vault and a Baroque altarpiece, is protected as a property of municipal interest. The church was rebuilt in the first half of the 18th century with the proceeds of the Agualva fair, authorised by King João V in 1712 and held on the same site since 1713, making it one of the oldest traditional fairs of the Saloio region.

Delve further back in time at the Anta de Agualva, a megalithic tomb of nine large limestone slabs dating from the Middle to Late Neolithic, in the mid-to-late 4th millennium BC, and a National Monument since 1910. The archaeological site of Colaride bears traces of occupation from the Palaeolithic to the Visigothic period and holds a Roman quarry with blocks still prepared for extraction, which the municipality describes as the only Roman quarry identified and preserved in Portugal. In Cacém, the Fountain of Maria II, a finely carved stone fountain inscribed with the date 1849, is another stop on the local heritage route.

Agualva-Cacém has had a railway station since 1887 and is served by the Sintra and Oeste lines, as well as the IC19 and A16 roads.

The craft beer scene in Agualva-Cacém is still waiting to be discovered. For now, after a day of Neolithic stones, Roman quarries and old manor houses, beer lovers can look further afield and explore the wider Lisbon area.