Northern Portugal

A TIMELESS JOURNEY THROUGH PORTUGAL’S BEST RURAL AND NATURAL LANDSCAPES

This 10-day trip takes through the strikingly beautiful and unique northern region of Portugal, which, after being founded in the 12th century, gave rise to the Portuguese nation and language. The area is very rich in history, and the traditional rural lifestyles and incomparable natural and manmade landscapes that still characterise it today, often make it feel as if one were travelling through an open-air ethnographic museum and create a timeless atmosphere that is becoming increasingly rare in Western Europe.

The first part of the trip takes us to the Alto Douro Wine Region, a UNESCO world heritage site and area that has been producing wine for nearly two thousand years. We spend 3 nights in a working quinta (a traditional wine-producing farm complex) and enjoy a couple of wonderful walks through this remarkable cultural and natural landscape, dominated by vineyards grown on cascading terraces that act as a testimony of a very special relationship between humankind and the natural environment. We make sure that there is time also to enjoy the fruits of such labour.

From here we move to the Peneda-Gerês, Portugal’s only designated national park, where we spend a couple of days walking in the footsteps of Roman legionnaires, traversing remarkably well-preserved woodlands, and climbing to high alpine pastures where ancient stone corrals and huts used by shepherds for their livestock still survive today. Throughout it all, we stay in the spa town of Vila do Gerês, located in the main valley of the Gerês area of the national park.

The last couple of days of the trip take us to the striking boulder-strewn highlands of the Terras de Bouro and the Santa Isabel Mountain range, where we walk through open pastures and traditional rural landscapes whilst enjoying spectacular views of the Amarela and Gerês massifs, as well as Lake Caniçada.

We finish the trip in Porto, a very picturesque and vibrant city with an extremely pleasant atmosphere provided by the Douro River and its proximity to the sea. We do a wonderful walking tour around the city, taking in some of its most important sites and also visiting a historic wine lodge where the Port wine traditionally came by boat along the Douro to age, before being shipped all over the world.

The terrain includes forest and farm tracks, tracks through vineyards, Roman roads, pilgrimage routes, woodland and mountain paths. The quality and variety of hotels is excellent.

KEY INFORMATION

The fitness level for all trips is classified according to the average distance and elevation gain of the walks offered, with fitness levels ranging from 1-5, see here for more details.