Description Cantanhede

Cantanhede is the largest municipality in the District of Coimbra and is located in the center of a geographic triangle of notorious economic importance, whose vertices are located, in addition to the district seat, the cities of Aveiro and Figueira da Foz.

Implanted in an area of ??temperate climate, with Atlantic and Mediterranean characteristics, it is bathed in the West by the Atlantic Ocean and confronts the municipalities of Mira, Vagos and Oliveira do Bairro, in the North; Figueira da Foz, Montemor-o-Velho and Coimbra, to the south; and Anadia and Mealhada, the East.

With an area of ??about 400 km2, Cantanhede includes fourteen parishes, in a total of 168 settlements, connected by an internal road network with quality roads, also showing an excellent road accessibility guaranteed by a series of highways, of which the highlights are nodes of the A1 motorway (Lisbon-Porto), in Murtede, and the A 14 motorway in Ançã, and the A17 motorway, in Sanguinheira, as well as the national highway 109 (Aveiro-Figueira da Foz), which crosses the entire West zone of the County.

Although there are no elements that lead us to a certain date of the foundation of Cantanhede, there are some important archaeological finds that account for the human presence in the territory at least in the Middle Paleolithic, whose terminus occurs around 30,000 to 28,000 BC.

Those who visit the Cantanhede Municipality are confronted with a wide range of experiences in contact with a stimulating nature due to its richness and diversity or in living with a unified socio-cultural reality around the references and heritage values ??that substantiate the peculiar experiences of the three natural regions that make up the territory: Gândara, spread over the sea; Bairrada, inland, where the seasons count for the growth of the vineyard; and Baixo Mondego, to the south, in a valley adjacent to the quarries of the famous Ançã stone.