Castelo de Leiria: Self-Guided Audio Tours

Leiria is not a stopover between Lisbon and Porto. It is the city where Portugal was invented. On this 90-minute self-guided audio tour, you will go from the Lis River up to the royal castle on the hilltop, walking through 900 years of history. This is not just another pretty church tour. You will discover why, without Leiria, the Age of Discovery would have never happened. You will stand in front of the Moinho do Papel, the first paper mill in Portugal (1411), where the paper for Vasco da Gama's maps was made. You will stop at the small Igreja da Misericórdia, the old synagogue where, in 1496, the first book in Portugal was printed: the Almanach Perpetuum, the astronomical navigation manual Vasco da Gama used to reach India. You will see Praça Rodrigues Lobo with its 16th-century Manueline pillory where justice was served, the austere Counter-Reformation Cathedral burned by Napoleon's troops, and the last remains of the medieval wall on R. Afonso de Albuquerque. And the best part: you will go up to Leiria Castle without suffering, thanks to 2 free panoramic elevators that take you to the Miradouro da Torre Sineira, the balcony with the best view over lower Leiria. At the top, in the Gothic palace of King Dinis, the Poet King - the king who created the university, made Portuguese the official language, planted an entire forest with his own hands to stop the dunes, and wrote love songs in its tower - you will understand the whole city you just walked.