The Fresco Route Project objective is to democratize the access to the Alentejo’s cultural and natural heritage and increase its visibility.

For this, different Routes, thematic Experiences and Programmes were created in which the visitor can access the usually closed architectural heritage, to watch live to ethnological traditions, taste the regional gastronomy and understand the surrounding landscape. And always sharing the discovery of a wallpainting- a "fresco": Alentejo’s unknown treasure.

See the existing Routes, Experiences and Programmes, and we remind you that we also develop tailor-made programmes.

To know our team, visit the website of Spira - revitalização patrimonial Lda, owner of the Fresco Route Project (www.spira.pt).

To keep track of our news, please visit us on Facebook, for "short news" about the Route, follow us on Twitter, to watch our videos, check out our Fresco Route channel, and, finally, to witness the experiences of some of our new visitors, share our Blog. 

Social responsibility

Based on a network of local partners – heritage owners, public entities, local businessmen and local development associations - the Fresco Route Project has the objective to promote the sustainable development of the covered territory and the preservation of its cultural legacy.

Each Fresco Route visitor thus actively contribute to the preservation of this heritage since part of the revenue reverts to the development of valorisation and attraction of patronage / sponsorship programmes for the conservation of this common cultural inheritance.

The Fresco Route is also available to people with reduced mobility.

History

The Fresco Route Project was created in 1999 by Catarina Valença Gonçalves, Art Historian, following an investigation carried out on the Alvito’s wallpainting group. Presented as "Alvito Fresco Route" to José António Lopes Guerreiro, the mayor at that time, the Project was, by his suggestion, included in the AMCAL - Association of Municipalities of Central Alentejo, in June 2002. Thereafter, routes were created for each municipality in the association; beside Alvito, Cuba, Portel, Vidigueira and Viana do Alentejo – as well as a combined Route for the whole covered territory.

The public investment provided for the Project has been crucial to its assertion: the Fresco Route was the first Cultural Route existing as a complete touristic product in our country, and was awarded, through AMCAL, with a public subvention corresponding to the real cost of each visit, which allowed the consolidation of the Route in the incipient cultural tourism market. It was thus possible to receive more than 6000 people in the Fresco Route, without socio-economic discrimination, and developing, complementarily, initiatives to raise awareness among the local adult and child population. The economic, social, heritage preservation and positive image benefits for a depressed area were evident.

However, true sustainable development is one that is based on the territory’s quality resources, either human or material and, on behalf of the desired development, defines a growth strategy aimed at self-sustainability. The public contingencies and the political nature of the Association were preventing the establishment of that strategy and hence the achievement of the sustainable development.

It is to that extent that, since January 2009, the Fresco Route Project is managed by Spira – revitalização patrimonial Lda, based in Vila Nova da Baronia (Council of Alvito) and property of Catarina Valença Gonçalves: the new investment, now private, in the Fresco Route Project intends to integrate the principles of self-sustainability which are crucial for the achievement of real territorial development.
In this way, we strengthened our belief in the original territory of the Fresco Route but opened ourselves to new territories, thematic, in which, in 2010, new routes will be created. And we continue, in close partnership with the municipalities, to seek to translate the impact of the project into a greater local collective awareness of the value and importance of inherited heritage: the "Frescos & Kids" for young people, the "Fresco Godfather " designed to obtain patrons for the recuperation of heritage and, finally, carrying out visits aimed at the local population are part of a new area of Social Responsibility of the Fresco Route Project.