"Mountains of the North" a Geraz do Minho Travel Page by Bwana_Brown

On a Sunday morning, the 7th day since we had left Lisbon in our rented car, we had to decide where we would make our one stab at going further north in Portugal before we had to turn south for good. Since we still had one more night booked in our hotel in Lamego, we debated the long drive to Braganca in the northeast or a shorter one northwest into the Geraz do Minho region. Taking a look at the twisting roads on the map, we decided to opt for the shorter route - so off we went at 9 AM. For a map of where we travelled in the Minho, please check my General tip.

The super-highway from Lamego to Peso da Regua was a breeze but from there to Vila Real was slow going on the most convoluted road we had yet experienced. Then it was high speed again to the west on E82 before we turned north toward Guimares on the N101. Once again, progress was noticeably slowed by the traffic as we passed through every town in this built up area of Portugal. I had somehow imagined a remote and sparsely populated northern area - but it isn't so along the western edges of the Minho! We finally stopped to look at our map for a course correction, deciding that we would forget the big cities and head back east into the more mountainous areas around Fafe. It was 3 hours since our departure before we breathed a sigh of relief as the green countryside opened up before us. And what countryside it was - very picturesque and the sun was shining!

In the end, we had a great day exploring up into the mountains of the Serra da Cabreira, almost reaching the famous Peneda Geres National Park before time forced us to turn back. Not wanting to repeat our torturous route up, we took a shortcut on a back road through a Nature Park in the Serra de Alvao, emerging very close to Vila Real at the end of the day.

This was our last full day in the north because, the next day, we made a brief tour of the Douro River (my 'Pinhao' page) before heading south and west to the Atlantic coast at 'Praia de Mira'.