Support Leiria - Routes for bicycle tours along Lis River and the Atlantic Road

Support the creation of touristic guides for cycle touring in the municipalities of Leiria and Marinha Grande, in order to attract cyclists to two of the municipalities most affected by the wind and rain storms this winter.

» The aim is to identify routes and create a road book with various weekend bike rides, with the objective of attracting new visitors to the region and contributing to the recovery of economic activities linked to tourism, particularly for local hotel and restaurant businesses, which were also severely affected by the bad weather.

» From the Atlantic coast to the interior of the municipalities of Leiria and Marinha Grande, the "tracks" will take cycling enthusiasts to visit Leiria, Monte Real, Ervedeira Lagoon, Praia do Pedrógão, Praia da Vieira, São Pedro de Moel, Marinha Grande and Amor on circular routes along the cycle paths and dirt tracks of the region, with the routes interconnected to the railway network at the train stations of Monte Real, Leiria and Marinha Grande, all on the section of the Oeste Railway that has since reopened.

» The aim of this guide is to identify various routes to:
- 1 to 2 hours, accessible to the whole family, including children.
- Half-day tour, visiting various points of interest.
- A full day of cycling, thus contributing to the local restaurants by consuming hot meals.
- 2 and 3 day trips , thus also contributing to the local hotels through one or two nights' stay.

» The road book will be published in two languages: Portuguese and English.

» Part of this amount will also be used to make my time and knowledge about road design available to support the technical and political agents of these municipalities (provided they accept it, of course) in the design and construction of cycle paths, both for leisure and for daily mobility in urban areas.

» Similar support could also be given in the area of traffic calming measures, which are so urgently needed to reduce the maximum speeds of cars circulating on the streets of our villages, towns and cities.

Exemplo possível de capa para o novo roteiro Rio Lis e Estrada Atlântica

About the author

Born in 1973 in a small village in Beira Alta Province, Paulo Guerra dos Santos has lived in Lisbon since he was two years old. In 2016, he finally managed to "escape" the big city, a dream he had since childhood, and now spends more time in the north of the country. That is, when he's not exploring the region by bicycle, of course, something he does frequently throughout the country, including the islands!

Graduated in Civil Engineering from ISEL, he specialized in Transportation and Road Projec. Since 1995, using extensive computer-aided design and engineering technologies, he carries out projects in the areas of Topography and Road Design.
He also has a second area of ​​expertise, Industrial Robotics, where he worked and provided training for much of the 1990s and early 2000s.

In mid-2010, he stopped all his professional activity for 4 months, during which time he took an epic trip: for 100 days he traveled through mainland Portugal, exclusively by bicycle, an adventure that he recorded daily on his travel blog .

This knowledge, combined with experience and a passion for cycling , has been used to identify the National Cycle Touring Network and share it with other travelers in the form of various road books with detailed maps and GPS tracks to be used as a travel guide. By 2026, this package of 15 Road Books has already account for more than 8,400 kilometers of identified routes.

His greatest ambition? To one day be the first human to cycle on Mars. Or on the Moon, if he can't go any further.

O promotor da campanha - Paulo Guerra dos Santos

Budget and due dates

April and May 2026
- Fundraising campaign. Dedication of several hours daily to promotion and gathering supporters.

June 2026
- Research in the office to determine routes to be taken. Preliminary sketching of tracks and preparation for field trips.
- Contacts with various local agents, including small hotels, restaurants, and the tourism and infrastructure departments of the Leiria and Marinha Grande city councils.
- Field trips involving successive bicycle journeys along identified routes in order to validate the best paths and points of natural and heritage interest, taking photos, recording GPS tracks, obtaining technical data such as altitudes and inclines, road surface conditions, etc.

July 2026
- Beginning of the creation of the road book, its respective sections and routes, design of the maps and final GPS tracks.
- Editing and assembling photographs and captions.
- Defining technical and tourist information for bicycle travelers.
- Translation of the road book into English.
- Review and completion of the Road Book " River Lis and Atlantic Road" and its distribution to all campaign supporters, as well as all the other well-deserved rewards.
- Creation of a specific section on the website www.ecovias.pt for promotion and free download of the road book.

August, September, October and November 2026
- Promoting the itinerary and tours on social media.
- Transfer of the itineraries and/or hyperlinks, for free use and promotion thereof, to the tourism departments of the municipal councils of Leiria and Marinha Grande.

March 2027
- Continuation of the promotion of free downloads from the road book via the ecovias and tourism pages of the municipalities.
- Integration of this route into the 2027 edition of the National Cycle Tourism Network's road book package, for greater world-wide reach.

Images