Buçaco Palace

Buçaco Forest (Portuguese: Mata Nacional do Buçaco) is an ancient, walled arboretum in the Centro region of Portugal and home to one of the finest dendrological collections in Europe. The forest measures 1450 meters by 950 meters and covers an area of 105 hectares; the perimeter wall is approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) in circumference and punctuated by a series of gates, one of which bears the text of 17th-century papal bulls forbidding women to enter and threatening to excommunicate anyone harming the trees, though neither stipulation is currently legally binding under Portuguese law. More than 250 tree and shrub species grow in the forest, including huge centenarians and exotics introduced by Portuguese mariners during the Age of Discovery. In 2004 Portugal submitted Buçaco Forest to UNESCO's tentative list of World Heritage Sites. Many of the forest's trees have been discussed in popular and academic literature. In 1634, for example, a Portuguese scholar authored a collection of poems that mentioned Buçaco's cypresses; in 1768 an English botanist provoked a 200-year-long debate by claiming one of the forest's cypress varieties originated in Goa; in the late 1990s wine writer Hugh Johnson visited the arboretum and described a Tasmanian mountain ash as "surely Europe's most magnificent"; more recently, historian and arborist Thomas Pakenham included one of the forest's bunya pines in his book, Remarkable Trees of the World. Buçaco Forest was once home to Discalced Carmelites: the monks built a convent, small chapels and the encircling walls, and tended the arboretum until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1834. At the end of the 19th century much of the convent was demolished to make way for an extravagant neo-Manueline palace. The palace was conceived as a retreat for the Portuguese royal family, but after the Lisbon Regicide and subsequent coup d'état it was converted to a luxury hotel, the Buçaco Palace.

Convento de Santa Cruz do Buçaco is a former Carmelite monastery in the Mata Nacional do Buçaco (Buçaco Forest) protected forest of the Serra do Buçaco, Portugal. It was constructed in 1628. It closed in 1834 following the suppression of male religious orders and dissolution of the monasteries in Portugal at the end of the Portuguese Civil War.Most of the buildings were demolished and the stones were reused in the Palace Hotel of Buçaco. However the chapel of the convent, with Baroque altarpieces, remains beside the hotel.

Luso is a civil parish of the municipality of Mealhada, Aveiro district, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 2,593, in an area of 16.87 km2. It is renowned for its mineral waters. Águas do Luso, one of the largest Portuguese companies providing mineral water is based there.

Serra do Bussaco ( pronounced [buˈsaku]) is a mountain range in Portugal, formerly included in the province of Beira Litoral. The highest point in the range is the Cruz Alta at 549 m (1801 feet), which has views over the Serra da Estrela, the Mondego River valley and the Atlantic Ocean. The Serra includes the buildings of a secularized Carmelite monastery, founded in 1628. The convent woods have long been known for their cypress, plane, evergreen oak, cork and other forest trees, many of which have stood for centuries and attained an immense size. A bull of Pope Gregory XV (1623), anathematizing trespassers and forbidding women to approach, is inscribed on a tablet at the main entrance; another bull, of Pope Urban VIII (1643), threatens with excommunication any person harming the trees. Located in the northwestern corner is the Mata Nacional do Bussaco (Bussaco Forest), an ancient walled arboretum. Towards the close of the 19th century the Serra de Bussaco became one of the regular halting-places for foreign, and especially for British, tourists, on the overland route between Lisbon and Porto. The Palace Hotel of Bussaco (Palácio Hotel do Bussaco), built between 1888 and 1905 in an exuberant Neo-Manueline style, still attracts tourists.In 1873 a monument was erected, on the southern slopes of the Serra, to commemorate the Battle of Bussaco, in which the French, under Marshal Masséna, were defeated by the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under Lord Wellington, on 27 September 1810.

Sazes do Lorvão is a parish in Penacova Municipality, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 749, in an area of 17.86 km².

Carvalho is a parish in Penacova Municipality, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 846, in an area of 30.14 km².

Botão is a former civil parish in the municipality of Coimbra, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,588, in an area of 16.52 km2. On 28 January 2013 it merged with Souselas to form Souselas e Botão.

Mealhada (Portuguese pronunciation: [mi.ɐˈʎaðɐ] ) is a city and a municipality located in Aveiro District in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 20,428, in an area of 110.66 km2. It had 17,043 eligible voters (2006). The city of Mealhada itself has a population of 4,522.It is included in the Região de Coimbra. The city of Coimbra is about 20 km away. The current Mayor is Rui Marqueiro, elected by the Socialist Party. The municipal holiday is Ascension Day.

Figueira de Lorvão is a parish in Penacova Municipality, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 2,737, in an area of 26.68 km².

Anadia (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐnɐˈði.ɐ] ) is a municipality in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 29,150, in an area of 216.63 km². It had 26,915 eligible voters. The city of Anadia is part of Arcos e Mogofores parish. The city itself had a population of 3,034 in 2001, while Arcos e Mogofores parish has about 5,000.

Souselas e Botão (officially União das Freguesias de Souselas e Botão) is a civil parish in the municipality of Coimbra, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 4,680, in an area of 33.01 km2. It was formed on 28 January 2013 by the merging of freguesias Souselas and Botão.

Souselas is a former civil parish in the municipality of Coimbra, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 3,092, in an area of 14.94 km2. On 28 January 2013 it merged with Botão to form Souselas e Botão. It has the largest of three Cimpor factories in Portugal (the other ones being located in Alhandra, São João dos Montes e Calhandriz and Loulé).