The mountain village of Gerês
We spent four nights in Gerês, located in the very north end of the country, just a few miles from the border with Spain, and smack in the middle of Peneda-Gerês National Park.
In Portugal, a "national park" doesn't mean a "wild" or "natural" area like in the U.S.

Peneda-Gerês National Park has over 15,000 people living in it in small villages (some of them surrounded by large agricultural areas), cattle graze the hills, and the area is laced with artificial lakes.

While staying in Gerês, we made three day trips into the surrounding mountains.

The first was to a promontory called Miradoura Velho, from which we could look right down on the hotel we were staying in.

Once again we ended up having a room above a restaurant. Here the restaurant is the building beside the asphault road, and our room was in the building on the hill right behind the restaurant.

Here's a panorama taken on that first day trip, from Miradoura Velho. (Scroll right to pan through it).
On our second day trip, we went up a wonderful narrow road to one of the wilder, more natural parts of the Park, up against the Spanish border.
Along the way we stopped at an elaborate crucifix, built in 1915, which featured a rather cherubal Jesus.
To drive through the wildest and most natural part of the park, you have to go through a check point, where you're told not to stop and you're given a ticket stating at what time you passed that checkpoint, so that when you reach the checkpoint at the other side, they can tell if you lingered in the natural area.
Only naturalists are allowed to explore this part of the park on foot and off the road.

There are plenty of ferns in the shady, old forest (below left), and at one end of the wild area there is a beautiful swimming hole that even non-naturalist types were allowed to visit (below right).

During the heat of the afternoon, we hiked down to the lake just outside the restricted area, hoping to cool off. But the water was too cold for us to swim in, so we just ate bread and cheese and grapes on the rocky shoreline.

Throughout the area there are stone roads constructed by the Romans.

And curious stone pillars from Roman times.
More recently, the locals stored grain in elevated stone silos like this one somewhere near Vena Nova.
Our third day trip was up onto the very high mountain ridge on the west side of Gerês.

Above: This is the high part of the road where it leaves the other road at the old crucifix pictured above.

Left: It's amazing how huge rocks can land in improbable positions.

We hiked along a four wheel drive road to a high, rocky promontory.
Where we posed for a photo (finding it difficult to prevent the camera from blowing away).
From the promontory we could peer down into the village of Seara which lies on the opposite side of the mountain from Gerês.
And as we descended back into town, we got another great view of the lakes below Gerês.
Here are a few more pictures from in and around Gerês:

  • Our hotel room deck, and the meal we ate there the night we couldn't face any more seafood.
    (This one is really blurry because of a problem with the wide angle lens that I didn't understand until later. Some of the other wide angle shots I was able to correct electronically better than I could this one.)

  • Gary on the deck trying to identify some birds we'd seen

  • Cattle on the road to Miradoura Velho

  • Melissa on the rocky promontory

  • Gary on the rocky promontory

  • There's a nice shady city park in Gerês

  • And there are mineral water springs from which they'll give you a drink (people used to come to Gerês in the 19th century for the healing powers of the waters)

  • Finally, there was a waitress who reminded us of some friends' daughter back home
    (Folks in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University: Whose daughter does the girl on the left remind you of?)

Unfortunately, it was now time to go home.