.jpg)
When we wrote about MED-Routes in Invade around a year ago, we presented a project still taking shape, with a clear ambition: to turn the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras into a testing ground for more sustainable tourism, bringing together heritage, nature, local communities and tourism operators.
Now that the project’s twenty-seven months have come to an end, we can see what that experience has brought to the Route. Co-funded by the Interreg Euro-MED Programme, MED-Routes brought together eight partners from seven countries to develop a model for low-impact cultural tourism, inspired by the principles of slow tourism and applied to four Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe.
Portugal’s participation was formally led by the Municipality of Vila Franca de Xira, while the work encompassed the territory of the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras, part of the European Cultural Route Destination Napoleon. It involved representatives from the municipalities that make up the RHLT, tourism operators, local businesses, cultural organisations and academic institutions.
The challenge was to bring the historical and heritage dimension of the Lines of Torres Vedras together with the landscape, natural resources and activities of local communities. This work resulted in two eco-itineraries: Fit & Green — Go Fit Where History Goes Greener and Bistrot Spree — The Ultimate Palais Experience.
In addition to the itineraries, MED-Routes produced action plans, training materials, videos, maps and tools designed to support the application of the model in other territories. These include a knowledge-transfer guide intended to help local authorities, cultural route managers and tourism operators create and adapt their own eco-itineraries.
The project also developed the MED-Routes Green Label, a proposed certification scheme for eco-itineraries and tourism operators meeting criteria for environmental sustainability, social responsibility and respect for cultural heritage.
The results achieved within the RHLT were presented in December 2025 at a forum attended by more than thirty representatives of institutions, tourism operators and cultural organisations. At the end of the meeting, a Commitment Charter was signed, through which local stakeholders expressed their intention to continue the collaboration begun during the project.
If, across the seven participating countries, MED-Routes resulted in eight eco-itineraries and involved more than a thousand people in 21 meetings, laboratories and exchange activities, for the Historical Route of the Lines of Torres Vedras the most tangible results can be found in the two itineraries now created and in the relationships established between those who preserve, interpret and bring the territory to life.
MED-Routes may be ending as a European project, but it leaves behind tools and proposals that can continue to evolve. Among forts and military batteries, paths, landscapes and flavours, the routes that once crossed the past are also opening up new ways of travelling into the future.