Top 4 Natural Monuments around A Dos Francos

Regularly, the company owner, Commander José Berardo, shocked in 2001 by the destruction by the Taliban of the thousand-year-old statues of Buddha in the cultural landscape and archaeological ruins of the Bamiyan Valley, in Afghanistan, conceived the project of creating a garden as a tribute to the loss of this heritage of humanity.[4] As a result, a 35-hectare space was later opened on the farm, with vegetation where cork and oak trees coexist, and an artificial lake with Chinese carp was installed, surrounded by several terracotta, marble and granite statues of Buddha and other oriental deities, open to visits, initially free of charge, today with a symbolic fee.

The Arnóia River rises in the Serra de Todo o Mundo and flows for 30 km before flowing into the Óbidos Lagoon. A dam was built about one and a half kilometres from Óbidos, in the Horta Valley, whose reservoir was used to irrigate the area's crops.

Rising abruptly between the coast and the Tagus valley, the Montejunto mountain range stands out from the surrounding landscape, not only because of its altitude but also because of its natural characteristics. It is spread across the municipalities of Alenquer and Cadaval, in a highly humanized region where intense agricultural activity takes place, thus emerging as one of the last refuges for many species of animals and plants.

Formed by a buttress made up of eruptive rocks, the volcanic complex of Serra de Todo-o-Mundo appears to have been formed by a lava flow, resembling a half-cone. "The Serra de Todo-o-Mundo is formed by a buttress made up of eruptive rocks (dolerites) from an altitude of 200 metres, which are exploited in the northern section of the mountain range for the production of gravel. This buttress, which comprises the «volcanic complex of the Serra de Todo-o-Mundo» and which «appears to be made up of a sill or a lava flow», describes a semicircle, a shape that is best seen from the top of Montejunto or along the road that connects Cercal to Caldas da Rainha, and this peculiar shape seems to be «in a possible relationship with a (volcanic) chimney». This phenomenon is not, in fact, strange to the morphostructural unity of the western coast, in which, although, as we have seen, limestone sedimentary rocks dominate, there are records of eruptive phenomena, of which the Lisbon-Mafra volcanic complex stands out, origin is located between the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Cenozoic.

At the end of this segment, towards Rio Maior, on the right side of the road there is a small park where it is possible to stop and walk a little to observe the magnificent natural caves on the banks of the Rio Maior, a practically forgotten river that gave its name to the current city from Rio Maior. Currently, the flow of the river is very low, drying up completely in the summer months. A little of history: "The Rio Maior rises in a picturesque place called «Bocas», a large gorge that cuts the mountain range, through which the Santarém-Peniche road also passes, located west of the city of Rio Maior. the picnic on Good Summer Day. It is said that in the mid-19th century, still on the Maior river, in winter or in times of plenty of water, boats sailed, almost all sailing or rowing, approaching the Tagus to change the loads to other larger boats." Source: Memories of Rio Maior - https://memoriasderiomaior.blogs.sapo.pt/2023.html

Dammed lake for the water supply of Obidos. Nicely situated in the valley