Talking with a Portuguese friend he mentioned 2 places that for him are the most iconic places in Portugal. Douro Area and Peneda-Geres National Park. He was right!
🍷 Douro Area
It is listed as Unesco Heritage site, and one of the oldest wine region, well known for the Porto’s wine production. The river becomes a fluvial beach where you can swim, standup paddle, kayak and other aquatic sports.
In the Douro area there is this road from Peso da Régua to Pinhão claimed to be the most beautiful road in the world
Yep, indeed it is beatiful ! But, IMO there is one road that is even more beautiful that goes from Pinhão to São Cristovão do Douro
🏞 Peneda-Geres National Park
The other area super worth visit is the Geres national park that is huge park full of nature and beautiful landscapes.
In the end we didn’t spend too much time there, the forecast was not good even if the weather was quite ok. Anyway we decided to move on.
And that was our last spot in Portugal in which we spent 59 days.
🇪🇸 And back to Spain — Santiago de Compostela
I think everybody already heard about Santiago de Compostela and the pilgrimages around. I’ve heard many times and I thought I knew something but I came to realize that I didn’t 🙈
In the last week I wrote this:
Probably all those path are just a marketing thing, but this does not make the path less beautiful, all of them must be amazing.
After visiting the city, talking with people I completely changed my mind 🤷🏻♂️
There is indeed the marketing aspect. With touristic spots, quick paid trips around, food and so on the center of Santiago de Compostela city is all about souvenirs to remind you from the journey or even from the place if you didn’t have the chance to do it.
Luckly the pilgrimage and the other marketing aspects are different subjects. The paths are not explored, but references. They are pilgrimages heading to Santiago de Compostela that can be seem as a unique personal journey. Some paths will become classical ones, like the ones recommended in the web site, and for those you might find the support on the way, but in the end of the day the path does not matter.
The goal is to spend time with yourself in a journey that is entire yours, limited on what you can carry, routed on physical challenges and obstacles that will shape the experience.
The place is just magical, the environment full of energy. It is definitely an unique and rich experience full of opportunities to learn. Bucket list +1!
