Nature tourism, leisure and well-being went hand in hand on the 25th, 26th and 27th of March in the second edition of the Arrábida Walking Festival, to take participants to discover the heritage of the Arrábida territory..
The São Filipe Fort was, in the late afternoon of March 25, in Setúbal, the starting point for the walking experience of the Arrábida Walking Festival, which provided an opportunity to get to know places that often go unnoticed and made possible an interaction with the various ecosystems of this protected area.
The first steps of this adventure took the participants on the “Entre Castelos” walk, with just over ten kilometers, towards Palmela, integrated into the central theme of the event “The Great Archaeological Route”, to unite the past and the present between Fortaleza of São Filipe and Palmela Castle.
The participants of the first walk from the city were received by the vice-president of the Municipality of Setúbal, Carla Guerreiro, who highlighted the importance of the initiative for the discovery of the unique, natural and human heritage of the Arrábida Natural Park.
From the Forte de São Filipe, overlooking one of the most beautiful bays in the world, the participants set off towards the Castle of Palmela, on a route with passages along the Roman road of Grelhal and along trails and paths that revealed the corners and charms of the mountains of São Filipe. Luís and dos Gaiteiros.
The second edition of the Arrábida Walking Festival, organized by Biotrails together with the municipalities of Setúbal, Palmela and Sesimbra, had two more walks on Friday, cases of “Serra do Louro by Night”, in Palmela, and “From Fortaleza to Castle”, in Sesimbra.
The walks continued on the 26th and 27th, to take more than half a thousand participants to discover the Arrábida territory, in a total of 24 routes, all sold out, inspired by the themes “The Great Archaeological Route” and “No Trilho da Flora”, a novelty in this year's edition of the event.
The complicity between nature tourism, leisure and well-being was reinforced with this new theme, which provided an opportunity to see and get to know some of the 1400 species of plants in the Arrábida Natural Park, 22 of which are considered exotic. and 102 with medicinal and aromatic characteristics.
Among the various proposals for walking tours, we highlight, with the support of the Bengala Mágica association, a walk accessible to people with visual impairments, on a three-kilometer sensory route to explore some of the Mediterranean flora of Arrábida, using the senses as identification tool.
The walks, made in a total of about 250 kilometers of routes, were the highlight among the 50 activities carried out at the Arrábida Walking Festival, in a program with workshops, botany classes and guided tours with gastronomic and wine tourism initiatives to provide more than a thousand individual experiences.
The second edition of the Arrábida Walking Festival, with the support of Quinta de Alcube and Caetano Drive, had partnerships with the Portuguese Botany Society, the Costa Azul Speleology Center, the Setúbal Peninsula Wine Route Association, Association of Municipalities of the Setúbal Region and Floating Nature.