Monumento Natural das Pegadas dos Dinossáurios

Estremadura & Ribatejo


On the N357 10km south of Fátima in the village of Bairro, this extraordinary quarry is one of the most important locations for sauropod prints in the world, with more than a thousand individual prints. Visits start with a 20-minute video in Portuguese, followed by a 1.5km walk around the quarry, first seeing the prints from above then walking among them.

These, the oldest and longest sauropod tracks in the world, record walks in the mud 175 million years ago. The dinos would have been stepping through carbonated mud, later transformed into limestone. As you walk across the slope you can clearly see the large elliptical prints made by the hind feet and the smaller, half-moon prints made by the forefeet.