We headed north instead of south today. Passing through Braga headed for Portugal's only national park. I used my AllTrails app to try to decide on one or two trails to hike. With over 50 options, I had a hard time choosing, but I'm partial to waterfalls, so that shaped our pick. It's been pretty hot and dry, so I wasn't sure there would be running water, but there were some natural springs that we hiked past and there were small waterfalls to see.
Coming from Kansas, I will note that the hills in Portugal are impressive. There is no flat ground anywhere. Towns, cities, farms, national parks, all have rolling or steep hills. The highway took us out of Porto in good time. Then we took a turn onto a smaller road out into the countryside. It was narrow and winding and had some spectacular views of a lake in the valley below. I could not believe how quickly we reached lake-level on this winding road.
Lots of rocky soil and some large boulders. We found this was true on the trail too.
Coming down into the valley as we approach the entry to the national park.
Two bridges crossed the lake to get to Geres near where we planned to hike.
We stopped for a picnic. There was no one around. It was surprising given how crowded some of the national parks are in the US.
We eventually ran into more cars parked on the side of the road near the trailhead. People were splashing around in the shallow, rocky riverbed. Given how hot it was, we were looking forward to this on our return.
Rio do Arado
We were hiking in the center of the park (dot on the light green on the map)
Small waterfall just a short hike from the start of the trail.
Zoom in view of the pools at the top of the falls. There were some serious warning sides about how dangerous it was to climb around the falls and swim in the pools (slippery with algae with major rocky cliffs).
This was the best part of the trail, easy to follow and packed dirt.
However, there were stickery plants growing all along and across the trail which were hard to avoid.
AND, much of the trail involved boulder scrambling and guess where the trail was.
As we approached what we hoped was a 2nd waterfall, we hit an apparent dead end, covering with brambles. Scott (who had pants instead of shorts) plowed ahead, but didn't find the waterfall in the end. The rest of us just turned around and headed back.
View of the bridge at the trailhead.
Cooling our feet!
We decided to drive along another road in the park to see the scenery and maybe hike another trail that was less overgrown.
We picked another waterfall trail that was in a shaded wooded area.
Pretty!
A horse who decided to block the road. Didn't move even when we drove around him.
Headed back to Porto.
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