Description Porto de Mós

Porto de Mós is a Portuguese village belonging to the district of Leiria, in the province of Estremadura, integrating the Intermunicipal Community of the Region of Leiria, in the region of Central Portugal, with about 5000 inhabitants.

It is the seat of a municipality with an area of ??261.83 km² and 24 342 inhabitants (2011), subdivided into 10 parishes. The municipality is limited to the north by the municipalities of Leiria and Batalha, to the east by Alcanena, to the south by Santarém and Rio Maior and to the west by Alcobaça. Wikipedia

The name of Porto de Mós is believed to have originated at the time of the Roman occupation, when the Lena River, which was then navigable, had here a port, in which the stones of the Mós (mills) carved and unloaded in a quarry were loaded and unloaded. existing in the region.

The millenary occupation of the Porto de Mós region is evident in the Municipal Museum, where various fossils and dinosaur bones are exhibited and also testimonies of human occupation at different times, such as various chipped and polished stone objects (from the Paleolithic and Neolithic period) ), coins and iron spears from Roman times.

The castle, built at the highest point, was rebuilt by order of King D. Sancho I in the century. XIII and two centuries later, it was transformed into a fortified palace with a beautiful and unusual layout that remains today.

In the vicinity, the Serra de Aire e Candeeiros Natural Park, with its limestone slopes, whose interior contains beautiful visitable galleries in Caves such as those of Santo António, Alvados and Mira d`Aire. On the surface, between traditional villages and stone mills, testimonies of the passage of the dinosaurs, on the recently discovered trail of Pedreira do Galinha, and of the occupation in Roman times, of which the best example is the sidewalk in Alqueidão da Serra, are preserved.