SALT MUSEUM CENTER
The Salt Museum Center was inaugurated on August 17, 2007, with the aim of interpreting, valuing, and disseminating unique testimonies related to the centuries-old relationship between humans and the salt flats in the municipality of Figueira da Foz.
Located in the Corredor da Cobra Municipal Saltworks, acquired in 2000 with the aim of promoting the reactivation and continuous maintenance of salt production, this cultural and environmental complex includes a Salt Warehouse, a Walking Trail through the salt flats, approved by the Portuguese Camping and Mountaineering Federation, a River Trail through the Mondego River estuary, and a bird observatory with a landscape reader of the surrounding territory.
This museum space is increasingly becoming a center for information, education, and awareness-raising among various audiences about the need to preserve a traditional activity and an artisanal product, thus contributing in an integrated way to the enhancement of this heritage as a factor in sustainable local development.
It is a local and national center open to research and information on the rich biodiversity of its ecosystem and an educational, leisure, and interactive facility. It is a space that offers unique and special experiences to the various audiences that visit it.
Its museum program was designed by the environmental consulting company Mãe d' Água, Lda., with the support and monitoring of the municipality's cultural services.
Visitors are presented with explanations of five major themes: What is Salt; Salt in Nature; History of Salt in Portugal; Salt Technology in Figueira da Foz and the Production Cycle; and Salt Pans and Nature Conservation.
As part of its 8th anniversary celebrations throughout August 2015, the Salt Museum Center held several important events, in particular the inauguration of the first Portuguese “Pedarium,” a "small infrastructure structure designed for the use of traditional salt as a form of therapy, health, and well-being, which takes advantage of the typology of the salt pans and whose construction was co-financed by the European Fisheries Fund (EFF), and fully respected the environment, in that the material used was only untreated pine wood, an element commonly used in Figueira da Foz salting."
Towards the end of 2015, the Corredor da Cobra Municipal Saltworks welcomed two new tenants. Two giant flamingos, designed in fiberglass by sculptor António Faustino. Martinho and Salgadinha were sponsored by the students of EB1 de Regalheiras de Lavos.
Source: CMFF