Peneda-Gerês National Park

Overview

Peneda-Gerês is Portugal’s only national park, created in May 1971 over 696 km² of granite mountains on the Galician border in the north-west, and the last stronghold of the Atlantic oak forest in the country. Its four ranges, Peneda, Soajo, Amarela and Gerês, rise to 1,545 m, cut by gorges, waterfalls and dammed lakes, with wild horses, wolves, deer and birds of prey among 220 vertebrate species, and about 9,000 people in stone villages inside its boundary.

It is free to enter, an hour and a half from Porto, and it is a walking place: marked trails from the spa town of Gerês, the Roman road along the Homem river, the granaries and shepherds’ summer villages of the plateaus, and the Spanish park across the border with which it forms the Gerês-Xurés biosphere reserve.

Visiting

The park spans five municipalities, Melgaço, Arcos de Valdevez and Ponte da Barca in the north and west, Terras de Bouro in the centre and Montalegre in the east, and there is no single gate; Gerês, the small spa town in the Terras de Bouro, is the base most people use, with a tourist office that gives free maps of the nearby trails and hotels, hostels and restaurants. No fee or permit is needed.

From Gerês the PR3 is the classic loop, about five hours: up through forest to a viewpoint over the valley and the reservoir, across a plateau of rock formations where wild horses and cattle graze, and down through woods and a traffic-free road back to town; the PR10, two hours in the forest above the town, is the lazy version. The park’s own offices have information on the longer routes elsewhere: the Geira along the Homem, the Soajo and Lindoso villages with their rows of granite espigueiros, Castro Laboreiro’s plateau in the north and the dolmens of Mourela in the east. Peaks: Gerês 1,545 m, Altar dos Cabrões 1,538 m on the border, Soajo 1,430 m.

History

People came late to these mountains, around 6000 to 3000 BC, and left dolmens near Castro Laboreiro and Mourela. The Roman Geira, the road from Braga to Astorga, crossed the park along the Homem river and long stretches survive with their bridges and milestones; the Buri, a Germanic tribe who came with the Suebi, settled between the Cávado and the Homem and gave Terras de Bouro its name.

Mountain farming spread from the 12th century and, with maize, beans and potatoes from the Americas, from the 16th; the state reforestation of 1935 took the pastures and drove a rural exodus. Around Castro Laboreiro villagers still lived half the year in the branda, the summer village above 1,000 m, and half in the inverneira in the valley. In 1970 the village of Vilarinho das Furnas was drowned by a dam on the Homem, and its ruins surface in dry years. The park followed in 1971, joined Natura 2000 in 1997, became a bird protection area in 1999 and a PAN Park in 2007.

Getting there

From the A3 motorway take exit 11 to the N203 into the park; the N103 from Braga and Chaves runs along the southern edge with the N304 leading in. Without a car, buses run from Braga’s main bus station to Gerês with the Empresa Hoteleira do Gerês, very sparse at weekends, tickets on board, and Transdev serves Campo do Gerês; the bus back to Braga leaves from the southbound side of Gerês’s one-way main street. Porto is about 90 minutes by car.

Tips

• Check the weekend bus timetable before relying on it; there may be one service or none.
• The Gerês tourist office only has maps for the trails near town; for anything else go to a park office first.
• Spring and autumn are the seasons; summer weekends bring Porto and Braga to the river pools, and the mountains get thunderstorms.
• In a dry late summer the drowned village of Vilarinho das Furnas is visible above the reservoir; ask locally.
• Campsites exist at Lamas de Mouro in the north and around Gerês; the hostels in Gerês are the social base.

Nearby

• Braga: 40 km from Gerês, the bus link.
• Arcos de Valdevez and Ponte da Barca: the towns on the western edge.
• Baixa Limia-Serra do Xurés park in Galicia: across the border, the other half of the biosphere reserve.
• Guimarães: about an hour by road.