Born in Vilar dos Burros village, the Sardoura river crosses Castelo de Paiva until emptying into the Douro river and in its course, forms the Seixo’s lagoon. Initially designed to be a water tank to the Castelo de Paiva county consumption, the Seixo’s dam, in the Sardoura river, was never completed. Currently, though artificial, this lake resembles a natural pond, by the harmonious way that it’s integrated into the surrounding landscape and nature. It is mainly used for recreational purposes, mainly for sport and fishing tourism. In addition to this, the Seixo’s lagoon presents good conditions for observation and interpretation of nature, with the presence of a remarkable fauna and flora diversity.
Harmoniously inserted in the landscape, biodiversity in this place is rich, especially when it comes to flora species. The abundance of water allows the existence of many plants of humid environments, some of them rare, such as the round-leaved sundew, carnivorous plant that feeds on small insects. Here you can also find the marsh St. John’s wort, the dorset heath, or the peat moss, typical sphagnum of peatlands. In terms of fauna, we can also observe several species, such as common toad and the otter, and a wide variety of dragonflies, the violet dropwing, the four-spotted chaser or the rare and protected orange spotted emerald dragonfly.
Located in the village of Real, the parish church is an unusual monument of great heritage value. This large church completed in 1776 and built in the late Baroque style features in its interior, an important set of gilt. On the outside we can contemplate five granite sculptures created in the same period, representing the holy apostles.
