Serra da Estrela Natural Park

Overview

The Serra da Estrela is the highest range on the Portuguese mainland and its natural park, created in 1976, is the largest protected area in the country, about 1,000 km² of granite plateau, glacial valleys and mountain villages with more than half its area above 700 m and the summit of Torre at 1,993 m, reached by a paved road and topped by a stone tower that was built to round it up to 2,000. The rivers Mondego, Zêzere and Alva rise here, and so does the country’s only ski resort.

It is a park of shepherds and cheese, the Serra da Estrela ewe’s cheese and the great dog bred to guard the flocks, of horseshoe valleys and lakes left by the ice, and of walks from Manteigas and Covilhã; it is free to enter and open all year, with snow on the tops in winter and heat on the plateau in August.

History

The ice of the Quaternary shaped it: the U-shaped valley of the Zêzere below Manteigas, the ravines, the polished rock and the glacial lakes are its marks. Roman road-builders crossed the range on the way from Mérida to Braga, and stretches survive at Famalicão and Folgosinho; the Arabs left the irrigation channels and orchards, the Visigoths the rural law, and the medieval villages sit at the foot of the mountain.

The economy has always been the mountain’s: rye and pasture on the Videmonte plateau, sheep and goats, the cheese made in the winter months, baskets of chestnut and wicker, weaving and smoked meats. Bears are long gone and wolves pass only occasionally; the park was created in 1976 to hold the landscape together as the villages emptied, and the villages have turned to tourism.

Visiting

Torre is the goal for most, a summit plateau reached by road from Covilhã or Seia with the tower, a shopping complex of cheese and blanket stalls, and the ski resort of Portugal on its slopes, whose gateway is the village of Penhas da Saúde above Covilhã. The drive up from Manteigas through the glacial valley of the Zêzere, past the Poço do Inferno waterfall and the Covão d’Ametade at the valley head, is the scenic approach, and the Cântaros crags above it are the walkers’ country.

The park spreads over six municipalities, Seia and Gouveia on the north-west slope below the castle of Linhares, Guarda and Celorico da Beira to the north-east, Manteigas in the heart and Covilhã on the south-east; Loriga and Alvoco sit on rocky spurs in the terraced south-western valleys. The natural vegetation runs in three bands, the black oak between 800 and 1,600 m and juniper and high pasture above, where the gentian survives; otters, genets, badgers and wildcats live in the valleys.

Tips

• The Torre road closes in snow and the plateau is often in cloud; check the forecast, and remember the summit can be 20 degrees colder than Covilhã.
• Buy the cheese in Seia, Manteigas or from the producers’ cooperatives rather than at the summit stalls, and in winter, when it is made.
• Manteigas, in the valley bottom, is the best base for walking and the quietest; Covilhã is the town with the trains and the wool museum.
• Summer weekends fill the Zêzere valley’s picnic spots and the river beaches at Loriga; weekdays are empty.

Nearby

• Covilhã: the southern gateway, 20 km from Torre.
• Manteigas: in the Zêzere valley at the park’s heart.
• Belmonte, with its Jewish museum: 20 km east of Covilhã.
• Guarda, the highest city in Portugal: on the north-eastern edge.

Getting there

The A23 serves Covilhã from Castelo Branco and the south, the A25 serves Guarda and Celorico from Aveiro, Viseu and the Spanish border at Vilar Formoso, the N16 skirts the north-east and the N17 the north-west through Seia and Gouveia from Coimbra; inside the park the N339 crosses the summit plateau and the N230, N231, N232 and N338 link the villages. Trains reach Covilhã and Guarda; a car is needed beyond them.