From the Cork-oak to the Traditional Factory – Industrial Tourism
Cork Tour: Book a Tour and learn more
- Algarve Costume Museum: Visit to the Cork Room, where you can see a film and learn about the skills of working with cork from the tree to the finished product.
- Visit to a traditional cork factory: Learn more about the processes involved in preparing and packing the cork.
- Visit a surf board cork factory- Discover this innovating factory and all the processes to make this eco- surfboards. Visit to a cork shop: Here you can see some of the latest uses of cork in fashion accessories made of cork fabric. A Visit to a Cork Oak Plantation: A walk amongst the cork oak trees, with an explanation of their life-cycle (10 meters).
Tourism, Cork Industry and Nature
When we think of industrial tourism, we refer mostly to deactivated industrial estates that are transformed into museums after being rehabilitated and musealized.
Algarve Rotas intends to follow the concept of heritage space as a thematic pole, where the identity and authenticity are considered fundamental principles. It distinguishes itself in various aspects, through interpreted visits to cork industrial states that are still in full operation, framed within a defined tourist and cultural route.
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To visit our cork industrial tourism is to offer the opportunity to contact on-site with the techniques and the entire operational chain involving the traditional processes of cork preparation and the visit to cork preparation factories.
Differentiating itself through its multidisciplinarity, Algarve Rotas values and dignifies the biodiversity of the Algarve cork-oak forest and plays an intervening and crucial role in promoting its native resources.
The Algarve cork-oak forest also defines a vast ecosystem, very rich in fauna and flora dependent on it, forming a sheltered area with a dynamic that favours the development of numerous species that can be observed during the visits.
One of the differentiating factors of this tourist and cultural product is based on the valuation of a noble raw material that dignifies the history and cultural past of the region and transmits to the visitor the idea of sustainability and heritage to safeguard, promoting and valuing the cork-oak and the cork industry, which is so associated with the interior region of the Algarve and which is the means of livelihood of rural populations.
Thus, these highland populations are still strongly dependent on an agriculture, forestry and pastoral system, associated with the cork-oak forestry and rural ways of life, and they are strongly attached to the local traditions and products and there is a “generational” continuity in the production and extraction of cork.
The Algarve Rotas routes are not only routes, they include the entire heritage and cultural and industrial history of a municipality to discover and a product of recognized merit for the region that values an important heritage and tradition.
Through a guided and interpreted itinerary, we intend to sensitize the visitors to the safeguarding and valuation of the cork-oak forest and the entire cork industry, highlighting its importance in terms of ecosystem and the species that dependent on it.
Thus, these highland populations are still strongly dependent on an agriculture, forestry and pastoral system, associated with the cork-oak forestry and rural ways of life, and they are strongly attached to the local traditions and products and there is a “generational” continuity in the production and extraction of cork.
The Algarve Rotas routes are not only routes, they include the entire heritage and cultural and industrial history of a municipality to discover and a product of recognized merit for the region that values an important heritage and tradition.
Through a guided and interpreted itinerary, we intend to sensitize the visitors to the safeguarding and valuation of the cork-oak forest and the entire cork industry, highlighting its importance in terms of ecosystem and the species that dependent on it.
KNOW MORE ABOUT ECO - CORK PRODUCTS
