This month travel through..

Pinhal do Rei Route

It's a real lung of Portugal with an extension of 11.000 ha. There existed a previous forest at the same place, however D. Dinis has proceed with its extension and improvement in order to stop the incoming sands, and he became deeply connected to the forest, to the point they start calling him "The Farmer King" and the forest became known as the "King's Pine Forest". However, other person, much less remembered, should be mentioned: Bernardino Barros Gomes. This forester gave order to the woods dividing it into plots by opening firebreaks and paths. He ordered the construction of the first Watch Towers and new houses for the guards, made studies about sowings and resinous materials, he elaborated, in 1882, the first General Chart of Leiria's forest, he created the technical bookkeeping and installed the first meteorology data gathering post.
Between its paths, and firebreaks we discovered threes of public interests such as stone pines, snake pines or huge eucalyptus. A luxuriant vegetation that is worth to visit by foot or car, or even to enjoy a picnic on one of the several parks.
This pine forest was a source of income to the region and to the country. From here leave many of the wood used to built the Portuguese Caravels at the time of the discoveries, populations grown around it due to the extraction of wood, resin, seeds and other activities, forest guards patrolled the area and controlled the materials that got out of the forest.
We went in search of old guard's houses and climbed the watch towers where we saw the hugeness of this forest.
Let yourself go in this green field and come to know this magnificent King's Pine Forest!