Casal de Ribeira is a small group of four houses built on the east side of the Sótão river. The hamlet is built on a narrow shelf of land a few metres above the valley. Casal da Ribeira is the beginning of the ‘Levada de Cima’ that transports the water as far as Tôpa.  The river below the  village can appear almost completely dry over the summer, as a little way up the river the irrigation channels divert the course of the river to provide irrigation water to the fields, and also supply water to the three corn mills below the village. There were three mills in this place, one shared with Monteira. These were the ‘Moinho do Casal da Ribeira’, the ‘Moinho da Insua’ and the ‘Moinho das Feteiras’. The first two could still work but are not in use any more, and the third one is derelict as the roof has fallen in. There is also an old stone well that in the past was worked by horse power. The village had several threshing floors (eiras) for drying the maize.  The lagar where the olives were pressed was in Vila Nova do Ceira.
In the past, the children of Casal da Ribeira went to the school at Monteira, until it closed about fifteen years ago, and now the children go to Vila Nova do Ceira. People went to the church of Vila Nova do Ceira for the weekly mass, and occasionally, until three years ago when the priest stopped coming, to the chapel of Monteira. When people in the village died, they used to be carried on stretchers of wooden sticks and ropes to the cemetery of Vila Nova do Ceira. The road through the village was made about 19 years ago. Before that, there was a dirt track and a footpath.

Many people from the village used to work at the paper mill at Ponte do Sótão. They used to walk along  the footpath to Caselhos, then to Portela and over the bridge (Ponte do Porto) towards the chapel of S. Gens in Ponte do Sótão. The man we spoke with in Casal da Ribeira told us that as a child he used to walk with his mother taking green vegetables, oranges, apples and other produce to the little square ‘Cimo da Barreira’ in Ponte do Sótão to sell. When people came out from working in the paper mill they could buy whatever they needed from them.
Two shoemakers used to live in Casal da Ribeira, from the same family, who also made clogs.
There are several local traditions that used to be observed  throughout the year in Casal da Ribeira, as in the neighbouring villages of this area:
i) At Carnival time people would dress up in disguise, and they also performed the ‘Cantar as pulhas’ (‘joke-song’) where someone would hide at night in the village, and then broadcast aloud all the gossip, secrets and rumours of the village for that year, sparing nothing and nobody!
 ii)  During the festa of S. João in the summer, a pole used to be erected on which was hung a pot containing a cat, and then a fire would be lit on the straw below. Eventually the pot would fall and break and the cat would (usually) escape. (We would very much like to know the origins of this tradition, which used to be quite widely practiced in the region).
 iii) At harvest-time  they played a game during the maize peeling – this was known as the ‘Chí’ or ‘Xí’, and involved embracing everybody in the group if you found a dark corn cob. They liked this game very much because it gave them chance to kiss the girls (or the boys!). The dark cob in this village is called ‘ Espiga rainha’ (‘Queen corn’)
iv) At Christmas time, from the 24th of December until the 1st of January, a fire made from the trunks of olive trees  - the ‘Cepos de Natal’  - used to burn in the square. The fire was kept alight continuously during this time, and people would dance around it and jump over it and sometimes fall in it!