washed out hiking Portugal

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

I’ve always seen northern Portugal on lists of the best hikes in Europe.

Yet I knew nothing about it.

Miserable after a couple of weeks in rainy Netherlands, I booked a next day flight to sunny Lisbon, Portugal, my first visit.

How did that work out for me?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Record rainfall, I was told.

Unflapped, I headed north to Peneda-Gerês National Park (PGN), the only National Park in the nation. … Certainly this squall would blow itself out quickly.

… An important feature of the landscape is the constant presence of water. Brooks and waterfalls are common at every mountain slope and the park is crossed by several rivers, namely Cávado, Lima, Homem, Rabagão, Castro Laboreiro, and Arado. There are dams across most of these …

My first day I took 2 day hikes, learning by the second to bring along an umbrella. This was my only photo in perhaps 7hrs walking. (I didn’t want to get the camera wet.)

Stashing a Summit Stone atop the boulder at this reservoir lookout:

I wanted to take photos like this of the famous stone granaries, protecting the corn harvest. They look like tombs.

It rained all night and continued next morning. Here are a couple of pics of my day hike up to the top of one of the ridges. A group of photographers had driven up, attracted by the weird light.

Could the weather finally be clearing?

This long trip might have been a complete wash out, … except that I was rescued by a couple of students from Canada, one now living in Portugal.