The Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras (RHLT) is a member of the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities (FECN), a network of European cities and regions whose history was influenced by Napoleon Bonaparte.
FECN brings together 85 cities and regions of Europe, of which two are Portuguese, namely RHLT and the city of Almeida.
One of the objectives of the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities is, through the support and promotion of meetings, seminars and publications in collaboration with universities and historical and cultural institutions, to raise the historical heritage related to Napoleon to its European dimension. It is also intended to contribute, supporting the development of research, teaching and the dissemination of knowledge, to a reflection on the influence of the Napoleonic era in contemporary Europe.
The Historical Route of the Lines of Torres also aims to promote the heritage and tourism enhancement of the Lines of Torres Vedras, with a multidisciplinary technical team working in areas such as Archaeology, Conservation and Safeguarding, Communication and Museology. This team collaborates, through national and international partnerships, in cultural and tourism programs, finding in FECN a set of partners of excellence for the development of those programs and multiple possibilities for the establishment of relationships and exchanges between people, groups and organizations around a common theme.
As a part of FECN, RHLT also integrates the European cultural itinerary Destination Napoleon, one of the 33 Cultural Itineraries of the Council of Europe, a program launched in 1987 by this organization with the purpose of showing, through “travels” in space and time, how Europe's cultural heritage develops across its borders.
In order to facilitate cooperation between European countries particularly interested in the development of cultural itineraries, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe instituted, in 2010, the Extended Partial Agreement on Cultural Itineraries. Another resolution came to define the objectives and criteria for granting the "Cultural Itinerary of the Council of Europe" accreditation. Portugal joined the Extended Partial Agreement from the outset, being represented on the Council of Europe's Cultural Itinerary Steering Committee through the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage. In a total of 33 Cultural Itineraries already accredited, Portugal is currently represented in 12.
Last year, RHLT was represented, for the first time, at ITB Berlin and in China, through the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities. In meetings held in the latter country, namely in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau, the Iberian Network of Napoleonic Cities was promoted to the Chinese market, with members of the network preparing a set of tourist information to be distributed to Chinese tour operators.
One of the latest actions of RHLT was the participation in the annual general assembly that took place in Ajaccio, in Corsica, in which its vice president, Ana Umbelino, presented the vision, mission and projects of the Association for the Tourist and Heritage Development of the Lines of Torres Vedras. This project was unanimously received as a case study and constituted, both for Charles Bonaparte, president of FECN, and for Jacques Mattei, its director, a source of inspiration.
