in Peneda-Gerês National Park, or a previously extinct lynx in Guadiana Nature Reserve.
These selected walks take you on a 175 million-year journey through time. From fossilised dinosaur footprints in Arrábida (Walk 28), via megalithic sites around Monsaraz (Walk 33), and the Roman roads from Portugal all the way to Spain (Walk 9), to the deserted schist villages that are now undergoing a resurgence, becoming superb bases for outdoor activities (Walk 17). Allow some time on your visit to see why UNESCO has decided that Portugal deserves to be the proud home of a dozen World Heritage Sites.
The food and drink is another understated attraction, with the unsung hero being the desserts and the doces conventuais (convent sweets). The good, heavy rich red wines from the Douro or Tejo valleys could compete with those of Bordeaux, but as their best are not often exported, you will have to come here to sample them. The same applies to the crisp vinho verde from Minho.
This is just a taste of our experiences after walking more than 6000km over a period of three years. Enjoy these favourite routes in Portugal. Boa viagem!
About Portugal
Panoramic view of Manteigas and the Zêzere glacial valley (Walk 23) with Penhas Douradas above (Walk 21)
To many people, the country’s best-known region may be the Algarve, but there’s a whole lot more to Portugal – especially for the walker. There are mountains upon mountains, and huge amounts of space, nature and solitude. Portugal has a population density only a quarter of England’s, so even though it is a smaller country there is much more space.
Adding further to the undercrowding is that most Portuguese do not walk for leisure. One local explained that ‘during the dictatorship, we all had to walk. Now that we don’t, why should we?’ Often when the Portuguese do walk they do so in big groups of up to 400 at a time, as a pilgrimage, a short walk with a long lunch, or a torch-lit night walk.
This is a relatively undeveloped country in some ways – where else in Europe would you expect to find people washing clothes by hand in communal lavadouros – yet surprisingly ahead of its time in others. It is astonishingly green in terms of energy production and usage, with 63% of all energy used in 2014 being from renewable sources: mainly wind turbines (as seen on Walk 26) and hydroelectric (Walk 17).
In Portugal, high places are often punctuated with radio aerial masts and accessible by road, so don’t expect pristine summits apart from on top of Carris (Walk 7) and the Montesinho peaks (Walk 12). Other summits are graced with beautiful chapels, such as São João da Fraga (Walk 6), Monte Farinha (Walk 13) and Peninha (Walk 27), or with castles such as Castro Laboreiro (Walk 2) and Marvão (Walk 31).
Freshwater swimming is another particular delight in Portugal; a praia fluvial is a freshwater beach, either on a riverbank or on the shores of a reservoir. There are opportunities on Walks 7, 8, 9, 17 and 29.
Geology
The geology of Portugal cannot be covered in full here, but to put it in a nutshell, Portugal has three main geological areas: north, central and southern. The north is essentially a stack of five layers raised when the Iberian plate collided with the Meguma Terrane plate 410 million years ago. This collision formed the mountains of the Picos de Europa, Montesinho and Peneda-Gerês. Its top layer is sedimentary schist (pronounced ‘shist’), a metamorphic rock formed when mudstone has been highly compressed and heated. The word comes from the Greek skhistos, meaning to split (see Walks 17 to 19). Revealed by the erosive forces of the Rio Douro is Miranda do Douro gneiss, the lowest layer of the stack and the oldest rocks in Portugal, which are pre-Cambrian (about 600 million years old). Another stripe in this stack is granite, evident in Peneda-Gerês (also with much evidence of glaciation, such as moraines and erratic blocks), Montesinho and Alvão.
The central portion of Portugal is mostly sedimentary rocks from the Cenozoic and Mesozoic basins – notably the massive Jurassic limestone deposits in Aire e Candeeiros Nature Park. This porous rock contains at least 1500 caves, including the biggest and most stalagmite-decorated Mira de Aire, and the best dinosaur footprints (at Monumento Natural das Pegadas dos Dinossáurios da Serra de Aire). Along the coast, the limestone is mixed with other rocks, both sedimentary and igneous, left over from the formation of the North Atlantic. The coastline is very rocky, indented by small bays with white sandy beaches and usually surmounted by cliffs of considerable height. Dinosaur footprints are also found here (Walk 28). Serra da Estrela features the most dramatic evidence of Portugal’s ice-age existence with the gigantic glaciated Zêzere valley (Walk 23).
The southern geological area is from a separate continent and the rocks are much younger – from the Upper Devonian to Carboniferous eras – and are mostly sedimentary. They form stunning cliffs along the coastline, as witnessed on Walks 34 and 35.
History
What we now call Portugal has been inhabited since prehistory, as evidenced by the astounding 27,000-year-old rock carvings found near Vila Nova de Foz Côa (near Walks 15 and 16). It was then colonised by the Phoenicians, followed by the Celts. The Romans took about 200 years to conquer the area, facing great resistance from the feisty northern tribes. The best Roman archaeological sites are to be found in Conímbriga, near Coimbra.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Suevi occupied the north of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Visigoths (who introduced Christianity to the region) the south. They were both replaced by the Moors, who were evicted in the Reconquista (reconquest) ending in 1249, fully 250 years before Spain’s Reconquista. During this, the country was officially separated from the rest of Iberia and the Kingdom of Portugal was founded in 1128, after the battle of São Mamede (see Walk 31). Alfonso Henrique, son of the victorious Count Henry, became the first Portuguese king.
Portugal has been linked with Britain by the oldest surviving international pact (the Treaty of Windsor, 1386). At one time Portugal was one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world, due to their navigational prowess exemplified by Prince Henry the navigator (whose trainees set sail from Capela do Senhor Jesus dos Navegantes, Walk 28), ruling an empire spanning five continents. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) dictated that of all the lands yet to be discovered, half should belong to the Portuguese.
The country was at war intermittently with Spain for hundreds of years, from the foundation of Portugal all the way until the French invasion of 1807, which was supported by Spain – leading to a rivalry comparable to that between the English and the French. This is likely to be why they have gone to such great lengths to ensure that despite both languages being derived from the same Latin roots dating from the Roman occupation, they sound so different. Portugal was involuntarily brought back under Spanish rule by Philip II of Spain (who then became Philip I of Portugal) in 1580 during the succession crisis – which later undermined the Treaty of Windsor, as the Spanish Armada contained some Portuguese ships.
The Portuguese War of Restoration, officially only ending in 1668, did not reverse the decline from the country’s pre-eminence, further exacerbated by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and by Napoleon’s invasion of 1807.
The First Republic violently removed the monarchy in 1910, followed by severe political instability ending with a coup d’etat in 1926, which led into the Salazar dictatorship. Times were hard, and there were mass emigrations, with millions of people seeking a better life: those from the north went to Europe (hence the frequency with which French is spoken), and from the rest of the country mainly to Portuguese-speaking Brazil. Some villages were abandoned entirely, as can be seen on many walks, and in most places you will still see derelict buildings whose owners left in the diaspora.
The repression finally ended in the bloodless Carnation Revolution of 1974, following which Portugal joined the EEC in 1986, with mixed fortunes: they required an EU bailout in 2011.
Chafurdãos – circular structures whose purpose remains unknown – can be seen in the São Mamede and Tejo area (Walk 29)
Wildlife