The municipality of Mealhada is subdivided into six parishes: Barcouço, Casal Comba, Luso, Pampilhosa, Vacariça and União de Freguesias da Mealhada, Antes and Ventosa do Bairro. In each of the localities it is possible to visit its places of religious worship, its small fountains and get to know its people.
The municipality offers great accessibility to its inhabitants and visitors, with highways and highways that connect it to the rest of the country, as well as a municipal road network that extends to all parishes. It also has the railway lines of the North and Beira Alta and the Extension of Figueira da Foz.
The existing heritage is rich and vast with regard to its history, tradition, culture, gastronomy and natural resources. From the monuments are the Palace Hotel do Bussaco, the Monastery of Vacariça, the 16th Century Rural House, the Military Museum, the Convent of Santa Cruz, but also a number of chalets that enrich some more emblematic villages, such as Luso.
Its landscape is defined by extensive vineyards, which give it a well-deserved place of prominence in the Demarcated Wine Region of Bairrada, and also by the majestic Serra do Bussaco. Marking this scenario, the romantic Mata do Bussaco provides everyone with unforgettable moments in each of its most enchanting corners and is an open door to the numerous challenges of nature tourism.
The municipality of Mealhada has some good cultural structures, including the Cineteatro, the Military History Museum, the old Casino, villages and buildings from the beginning of the century and the former Convent of Santa Cruz do Buçaco. You can visit some structures of industrial archeology, through traces of what was an important railway junction, but also references of the Monastery of Vacariça and ethnographic shows scattered a little throughout the parishes, and which are part of a cultural heritage deeply rooted in the popular tradition of the region. markets and fairs, Carnival and samba.
Two philharmonic associations and eight folk lore are a reflection of a marked municipal associativism, which results in concerts, festivals, museum centers, music schools, and other facets of the traditional participation of the human fabric of Mealhada in collective life.
Mealhada has the ability to provide true and memorable moments of family leisure. From culture to sport and contact with nature, from gastronomy to well-being and health, the municipality presents a diversified tourist offer, able to satisfy all audiences, with the termalism and oenology as some of the strengths of
the region. with one of the best mineral and medicinal waters in the world, a spa and reference hot springs, hotel equipment, quality restaurants and modern sports infrastructures as the Luso Internship Center, which hosts numerous selections of various modalities.
Mealhada has in gastronomy some of its ex-libris, which make up the 4 Wonders of the Mealhada Table: the water of The Luso, the typical bread of four beaks, baked in a wood oven, the famous and original piglet of Bairrada and the wine of the producers of the municipality. But there is still the chanfana, the sarrabulho and the negalhos, the snails and the cavacas of Luso. The gastronomy of the region is rich and recognized and proof of this are the many existing restaurants. Mealhada is known not only for the typical Piglet of Bairrada, but also for its derivatives, such as the piglet cabidela. reds, whites or sparkling wines.
The arts of tanoaria, tins, ceramics, basketry, shoe making, give rise to local products, to which we can add gastronomy, the manufacture of wine, folklore and the numerous festivals and pilgrimages that make up not only part of the economy, but also the essence of Mealhada.
Source: Mealhada Town Hall