The best road cycling routes around Santa Catarina da Serra e Chainça

Definitely worth a visit. We visited another grotto during our stay, but this one was considerably larger and more impressive.

Gorgeous views! The climb to Alqueidão da Serra is tough for beginners.

Very nice place to take a break before starting to climb towards Serra Santa Catarina towards the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima

night tour

The magnificent entrance portico of the Igreja de Santa Maria da Vitória is unique in the history of Portuguese art, a work by the Master Huguet (1402–1438). It features an elaborate iconographic ensemble comparable only to the great porticoes of European cathedrals: six apostles on each side, virgins, martyrs, popes, monks, angel figures, God, and the four evangelists...

After the revolution of 1383, Portugal found itself in a difficult conflict with the neighboring Kingdom of Castile. The battle was decided in 1385 when the Castilian and Portuguese armies clashed at the Battle of Aljubarrota. The Castilians outnumbered and were better armed. As a military leader, Nuno Álvares Pereira loyally stood by his patron, John of Avis. The Portuguese achieved a resounding victory, which is attributed in particular to the strategic genius of Nuno Álvares Pereira. With this victory, the Castilian claims to Portugal were permanently repelled. John of Avis was proclaimed king by the Cortes, as John I of Portugal, thus establishing the second Portuguese dynasty, the House of Avis. Nuno Álvares Pereira became a national hero, and the grateful king showered him with honors and material possessions.

The plastic mould industry began in 1943 in Marinha Grande, in a small glass mould company, on the initiative of Aníbal H. Abrantes, but without the consent of his partner and brother Aires Roque, who therefore sold his position in the company and continued his activity in the glass industry. Two years later, Abrantes produced the first injection mould for plastic. The industry developed with the import of foreign technology and, in 1955, exports began with the sale of the first moulds to Great Britain. By 1980, the industry was already exporting to more than 50 countries and in the Marinha Grande area alone there were 54 companies operating, employing around 2,000 people. (Source: www.cm.mgrande.pt)

The Boitaca Bridge began to be built in 1862, during the reign of King Luís I, as attested by the inscription on a tombstone placed there. Its name derives from the former owner of the land, the French master Diogo Boitaca or Boytac. Crossing a branch of the River Lena, which runs through the parish of Batalhão, it was part of an old royal route that connected Lisbon to Porto. The bridge, in revivalist and neo-Gothic style and tinged with yellow, is defined by a flat deck over six pointed arches, surrounded by buttresses, on which rise pinnacles. Between these elements, and contributing even more to the Gothic air of the monument, is the stone fence with quatrefoils.