The Mata Nacional dos Sete Montes sprawls across 39 hectares at the foot of Tomar's Templar castle, and it is not your average city park. These seven wooded hills once belonged to the Knights Templar, then to the Order of Christ, who used the enclosed grounds for prayer, cultivation and, reportedly, initiation rites. Centuries-old cypresses, oaks and olive trees shade paths that wind past curiosities like the Charolinha, a miniature cylindrical church built in the Romantic style.

You enter through iron gates guarded by a statue of Henry the Navigator, who dreamed up Portugal's age of exploration while staying at the castle above. The same order that trained knights for battle on these slopes went on to finance voyages that redrew the map of the world.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour traces that unlikely arc, following the Templars from sword fights and siege warfare to the founding of a global empire, with the forest as the final stop where 300 knights once trained before repelling an army of thousands.