The best MTB trails around Alguber

Using only the natural power of the wind as the driving force, the heavy millstones are moved, and for example, grain kernels are ground into flour (grain mills) or olives are pressed into oil (oil mills). Miguel de Cervantes (1547 to 1616) also created a literary monument to the ancient tradition of windmills: the most famous character of the author, considered Spain's national poet, whose work can certainly be appreciated as world literature: "Don Quixote," also known as the "Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance." He is always accompanied by his loyal squire Sancho Panza, and in one of the highly imaginatively narrated episodes, he engages in a – naturally hopeless – battle against windmills, in which he believes he recognizes four-armed giants.

Salt is extracted from compartments – pits – made of cement or stone, of varying sizes and shallow depths, to which salt water is taken from a well through irrigation channels. Currently, the water is raised by means of a motor and distributed according to a system that is jointly accepted and respected (not always) by all the owners. The sewers, threshing floors and wooden houses for storing salt complete the set of what is called the Salt Mines of Rio Maior. According to technicians, a large and deep rock salt mine, crossed by an underground current that feeds a well, makes the water extracted from it salty, seven times saltier than that of the sea. The salt is obtained from its exposure to the sun and wind and the consequent evaporation of the water, deposited at the bottom of the pits, which is then placed in pyramid-shaped piles to dry until it is collected. The process is rudimentary and similar to that used in the salt mines on the seashore. The only difference is the picturesque valley that surrounds them, the well, the unique style of the sailors (as the men who work in the salt mines are known), the wooden houses and the country air that can be breathed.

Fantastic Single Track of low difficulty. This trail runs through a leafy forest, almost parallel to the Ribeira de Alcobertas. It can be done in both directions. During the rainy season it can become slippery and muddy in some places.

top to roll

old railway

Magnificent views over the Óbidos lagoon.

In Fonte da Bica, the old school and the fountain that gives it its name mark the landscape. As you cross the village, you will be greeted by views of the salt pans and the typhonic valley, carved over millennia by the erosion of the salt deposited there since the Jurassic period.

Along the Caminho da Meia Encosta you will find three old Forest Ranger's Houses. All of them were renovated a few years ago, and then left abandoned. Unfortunately, vandalism took over.