Peneda-Geres National Park 2 - It keeps getting better!

Our next stop in the National Park was Campo do Geres. The weather was really foggy and misty. The small roads that took us there twisted around huge boulders and romantically old stone buildings.

Lesson No. 1 in driving into these ancient villages - make sure your car will fit through the narrow lanes first! John had to do some fancy maneuvering to turn around when things got tight.

Our little house in the village of Campo de Geres was amazing. It had been converted from a typical animal barn where the stock were housed on the ground floor with the hay loft above. The owner showed us a video from the 1980's of cows being led out of what was now our front door!

A large window looked over the village and the mountain range beyond it from our living area. We were surrounded by homes and barns similar to ours. It was wonderful!

Just near our house was this enormous tree that is reputed to be 500 to 600 years old.

It was still cool but it stopped raining so we headed out. Our first walk took us through some gorgeous forest.

More wildflowers brightened the countryside.

A big dam wasn't far away and we walked across the dam wall. It was huge!

The track ended at a village that had been submerged by the dam. All we could see were some rows of stones. Apparently you can see buildings in drier times.

The dam was quite picturesque and was a popular place for locals in summer.

The next day seemed to be clearer so we headed out on a much bigger walk. We made up a mix of a couple of different walks and it ended up taking us five hours or so but it was worth every minute. 

We walked through some beautiful forest again.

At one stage we walked through a forest of wild strawberry trees. The fruit from these are used for making medronho, a very tasty local drink.

We then started walking along the old Roman road. It was incredible! It is thought to have been built in the 1st century as a military road. It originally ran for 215 miles and there were inns and places to stay every mile or so. We came across a couple of places where columns still remained from old buildings.

There were a few critters to see too. We saw a number of these huge black slugs. You can see from John's boot how big it is.

This colourful lizard was much cuter than the slug!

The track then ran along what is now a section of the dam. A short stretch of the Roman road is now under water sadly. The green of the moss and trees here was stunning. The ancient paved road was in great condition and we felt like we were travelling through time as we walked along it.

We even found a column with Roman writing on it. I could easily make out the word "Caesar" on it. We assumed this was a mile post, as we've heard about them, but there are also apparently some stones that have Roman graffiti on them!

Back in our room the view from our living area was sensational with sunshine and clear skies!

In our village we found a campground with a restaurant that sold - wait for it - fried vegies with tofu and rice! This was pretty exciting for me as I'm over the meat and veg meals. The really exciting part was the soy sauce but they put so much on that I think I got enough salt to last a week! 

Looking for something smaller that night we tried a local tapas-type place. It was tiny but had great views over more espegeiros (the old granaries used for storing corn that are still used today). This is one of the largest ones we saw anywhere. Note that the slatted sides on this are made from timber, not stone. They're newer than the stone ones.

We ordered a small serve of chorizo but it got lost in translation and we got the large one. A full chorizo came out on a dish with burning aguardiente, local firewater, in it. The chorizo was heating on top and we had to turn it over after two minutes to finished cooking the other side!

The waitress there was Brazilian and she was really friendly and chatty. Her name was pronounced "Alla-easy". She said to us, "You can just call me Easy"! We didn't have the heart to suggest that might not be the best option!

Her boyfriend worked as a waiter in a local restaurant in the next town so we tried that for lunch the next day. It was a really popular place on a cold Sunday afternoon and was good.

Between bouts of rain and fog we got a little more walking done but the weather was settling in sadly. The misty views were gorgeous though.

We had an amazing drive to dinner one evening. It has to be one of the most spectacular drives to dinner we've ever done. The road wound along the side of a mountain and the views over the nearby mountain ranges were incredible! The road was pretty challenging though so I didn't get to take many photos. This one is looking back over the dam wall. 

At the restaurant, which also had spectacular views, the owner told us that her desserts were fantastic. In a country where desserts rule supreme, that was a big statement. John skipped entree to make sure he had room for dessert and he wasn't disappointed. They were brilliant!

Our last stay in the Peneda-Geres National Park was in another ancient village called Pitoes. The area outside the village was stark and looked a lot like English moors. As we approached the village though, we were surprised by how neat and agricultural the town was. Crops were planted in neat rows and paddocks of rye waved gently in the breeze.

The village looked pretty but was shrouded in misty rain when we arrived. We were at 1100 metres altitude here so we dug out the thermals and hats for the first time on the trip.

Without sunshine, the granite town was dark. I can imagine it could get depressing here in a long winter. I later saw old photos of people in this town and other towns nearby in what was probably mid-last century. Dirty kids with large eyes stared out from under woollen coats on dark, wintry days. Photos inside houses showed fires lit on the floor and people huddling around. The old, grainy photos added to the atmosphere. It would have been a tough life then. These old buildings have probably seen much tougher than that though as they've been there for many centuries.

We wandered the streets in the drizzle. Narrow cobblestoned lanes led up and down hills through the village. We found a bar where a handful of people were watching the European Cup but it was smoky so we tried elsewhere. As we walked, a couple of dogs joined us. One was one of those huge local dogs, although this one looked like a cross between an Alsatian and a lab. Nothing perturbed him. his friend was much smaller and more timid. They walked with us the entire time that we explored the town!

We found no shops and the only bakery was closed. It was cold, wet and we were getting hungry. We found another bar and learned that there was some sort of shop next to a restaurant that could be open.

Google said two out of the three restaurants were open that night. Neither were. Thank goodness the one that wasn't supposed to be open, was!

John needed milk for his coffee in the morning so we enquired at the restaurant. The man there told us to go outside and go to the next door where his wife met us and opened the shop so we could get the milk!

On our way back we met an old lady who was our neighbour. She must have had an operation on her mouth or a stroke or something as she couldn't speak properly. To top it off, her false teeth occasionally dropped down from her gum! She launched into a barrage of conversation and it took us a while to get the message across that we don't speak Portuguese - at least not well enough to listed to her garbled speech at 100 miles an hour! The old lady talked to us (or rather at us) for a good 10 minutes and we barely understood a word. She said something about the house across the road, working in France and having five children. In the end we think she said that we can knock on her door if we need anything. She was a classic. We had to laugh at the way she just kept talking even though we clearly didn't understand.

Soon afterwards, the weather cleared a little so we jumped at the opportunity for a walk. First stop was the Monastery of Santa Maria. Located in a beautiful spot beside a babbling river, this monastery had its roots in the ninth century. The old ruins were so picturesque.

A particular kind of grass produced a pink haze on the ground.

Soon we had a long slog down to a waterfall then a seemingly much longer slog back up! There were viewpoints everywhere.

We returned past a restaurant and had a lovely lunch and decided to return for dinner. The restaurant had stunning views over the town and mountains.

Dinner was wonderful! The lovely owner was Brazilian. Her parents had emigrated to Brazil and had come from this village. She came to Portugal to study, came to the village to see where her parents came from then met a local man and married him! She cooked us up a seriously good feijoada, a Brazilian stew.

Portugal was playing in the European Cup so we pulled up chairs with the family and watched the game on the TV in the restaurant. We're not into soccer much but it's amazing how enthusiastic we can be when we're in a country that's playing. It was a nail-biter of a game with Portugal winning in the end!

At 10pm we walked back to our accommodation. It was almost dark and the night sky was gorgeous.

We had such a fantastic time in the Peneda-Geres National Park. Yes it was cold here, and drizzling most of the time.  but we figure it's just getting us ready for the next stage of our trip in Iceland and Greenland!

Heather and John