Pego do Inferno

In a green hollow of the countryside north of Tavira, the Asseca stream drops through small calcareous cascades into a deep, dark pool. The place carries a heavy name — Pego do Inferno, Hell’s Pool — earned, the story goes, by a carriage that plunged into the water and was never found.

Mills and tufa dams

The cascade is the largest of three on the Asseca, a stream that matters to the whole Tavira countryside. Falling water over limestone built the terraced tufa dams that hold the pool, and a watermill once worked at the site — the old name Moinhos da Rocha survives for the place. The falls owe part of their present shape to work done for irrigation over the generations.

The legend of the lost carriage

The story of the carriage — its passengers and horses never recovered, divers said, despite every search — gave the pool its infernal name and kept it out of guidebooks for generations as the region’s secret waterfall. Today it is a short, well-trod walk from the road, popular for its shade in the Algarve summer, and the coast of Ilha de Tavira lies only a few kilometres south.

What to see

• The cascade and the deep pool below
• The terraced tufa dams of the Asseca stream
• The memory of the old watermill (Moinhos da Rocha)
• The footpath down through the trees
• The Tavira coast a short drive away

Practical information

The waterfall lies in the parish of Santo Estêvão, in the Tavira municipality, reached by country lanes off the road north of the city. The flow of the stream varies greatly with rainfall and upstream use, and in dry years the pool can shrink or nearly vanish — check local conditions before planning a swim.

Image credit: Pego do Inferno by Jose A. — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.