Germil

Germil is a village in the south east corner of the park. Its picturesque, somewhat touristified (it may be busy in summer), accessible on a long tight single track road along a cliff from Entre Ambos os Rios. The village on the edge of the park so some of the views are down away from the park, I did a 9k walk a little way into the hills above the village and then down into an oak valley of the Ribeira da Baixa below the village. It was a great sunny day, and Germil has the best preserved Fojo do Lobo I've seen, and the walk enables you to look across a narrow valley to it, the Fojo do Lobo is next to an impressive waterfall. The best bit was an old paved trail through the oak valley, which wound back up into the village.

A 10km walk around parts of the Geira Roman Road near to Terras de Bouro

There is a tourist office (portal) for the park at Campo de Geres which presents a number of shortish walks (Pequenas Rotas) of 10-20km.

I did "Pequena Rota 9" (leaflet with the route and information in English here) which covers an area to the south of the National Park proper around Terras de Bouro.  It actually covers in part a stage of the Geira Roman Road which ran from Braga to Astorga in Spain, and which is marked and preserved within the area of the park.

I started in the village of Chorense. Inexplicably - because there didn't seem to be a festival on - a speaker for a sanctuary on a hill above the village had been hijacked to play terrible Portuguese country pop music. This dominated the first 45 minutes of my walk.

 It's ok, a decent circular route which and it was nice to see the roman mile markers (each Roman mile on the route has roman mile markers still preserved).  The picture shows one marker at mile 16 showing the name of the Emperor Decio, I think from the year 250.

As with many of the tracks now within and outside the park, much of the route has been bulldozered, so it also serves for tractors and therefore off-road cyclists and motorbikers.  There is some nice oak woodland, though in many places the oaks have been supplanted by eucalyptus, presumably for commercial growing.

You're very much in the lower reaches of the hills and the villages you walk round are substantially modernised with less of the beautiful granite historic houses and farms visible that you see in the less developed, higher villages in the park.

Castro Laboreiro

Ruins of Castro Laboreiro's twelfth century castle tower over
the village

Castro Laboreiro is the largest village in the North of the park, in the Serra de Peneda accessible by bus from the town of Melgaco.

Castro Laboreiro has - like other large villages in the park - a number of hotels, restaurants and guesthouses though still retains much of its traditional agricultural life.

A leaflet on the official ADERE website, lists the hotels and guest houses and also identifies a walk along the tradtional paths from the inverneiras to the higher summer villages - "brandas".

There is a small museum with information on traditional village life (entirely in Portuguese), but the ruins of the 12th century castle built on top of a high rocky crag is the main thing to see. From the castle you look down onto the valley of the Castro Laboreiro river alongside which are the traditional inverneiras (lower, winter villages).

View from the castle, looking down the valley of the
Castro Laboreiro river

Megalithic Tombs

A walk from the village of Rodeiro a few kilometers from Castro Laboreiro in the North West of the Peneda Geres park, takes you to a group of megalithic tombs. I never think early stone age constructions are that exciting, but there are several groups of tombs and they are impressively situated on a range of high rolling hills. Some of them even have cave paintings.


Alot of tombs havent been excavated so are just mounds. Constructed 4 or 5000 years BC, one can only admire stone age man's ability to cause bureacratic problems for future archeologists as the largest group of tombs are situated right across the Spanish/Portuguese border. Anyway the views are great, and its a long but easy walk up and around the tombs of around 15km. Rodeiro itself is an attractive, traditional village. I followed a circular route from Sudandobotas - downloadable here. Theres also an official map of a linear route available on the local council website here.

50 mile Hike from Soajo around Serra de Peneda

I've done some bits of this and its seems really good. Its about 50 miles in all.

If you've got a handheld GPS software or GPS on your phone you can download the route here:
http://en.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=2715253

Soaja

Soaja is a large, relatively well developed village with a few bars, restaurant - even a bank machine! - as well as the traditional village community.
There's a regular-ish (about 3 a day) bus service between Soajo and Arcos de Valdevez.

It's the main village for visiting the Western side of the park. It's a good place to start walks and particularly the Big Route around the Serra de Peneda.

If you don't fancy following the full 3-day Big Route, there's also a nice route to the north of the village following the traditional stone paths - see Paths of Bread and Faith.



The Geira Roman Road

Ruts from 2000 years of carts travelling along the Geira
 Roman Road (between Portela do Homen and Lobios)

The Geira Roman Road is a beautiful way to see the Peneda Geres National Park, including some of the Spanish side. For most of the path you are walking through oak woods along the paving slabs left by the Romans, now deeply rutted by two thousand years of cart traffic. Roman mile markers and memorials are distributed all along the path. The ancient road ran 300km between two important Roman cities of the Iberian peninsula, Braga, now in Portugal, and Astorga in Spain.

I walked the Geira Roman Road for three days from outside Braga on the south side of the park to Lobios - the central village of the park on the northern, Spanish side.

The signposted trail and infrastructure only runs as far as the Spanish border. However, once you're in Spain the route from the Portela do Homen fronteir to the village of Lobios is essentially a straight line and is easy to follow on the map. I didnt try to continue the path beyond Lobios, but doubt it exists in any easy-to-follow form.

The signposting of the Geira Roman Road in Portugal is very well done, with sensitively designed glass boards every roman mile of the route explaining the history and metal signposts showing the way. It's a while since I walked the path, but I dont remember the trail being difficult to follow or walk at all - so would rate it easy to moderate difficulty. Obviously the path does wind up into to hills so there's alot of uphill walking.
The walking route I followed was as follows:

• Day 1 - Vila Verde, 16km outside Braga to Terras de Bouro (not following the Geira path) - staying in a guest house in Terras de Boura
• Day 2 - Terras de Bouro to Campo de Geres, picking up the Geira a couple of km east of Terras de Bouro (see below) - camping at the Parque de Cerdeira campsite
• Day 3 - Campo de Geres to Lobios (via fronteir at Portela do Homen) - staying in small hotel in Lobios

Roman milestones and modern "milemarker" interpretative
 board along the Geira Route

The challenge with the Geira Roman Road is where to start it! There is no published map online of the route, and in fact the only map I've ever seen is a large scale one on a billboard outside the Turismo office in Terras de Bouro. However once you've started the trail its easy to follow with clear signposting (see above). Also, in general the road follows paths that are marked on the map, though not identifed as part the Geira.

Where to start the Geira Roman Road

From Braga
???? This is where it starts, but I can't find where. Can anybody help - one option would be to start from the central square of Praca da Republica, asking at the Tourism office in the same square to point you in the right direction.

From the Canicada Dam, at the south of the park
The Portuguese website serra-do-geres.com says:
"This adventure begins at the junction/rotunda at the end of the bridge over the dam of Canicanda, for those coming from Braga. If you turn right, you'll go to Geres, if you go left you'll be hading to Amares and reutrn to Braga. Go straight on and you;ll come to [the church of] Sao Bento da Porta Aberta. Continue and you'll have [the church of] Sao Joao de Campo. Follow the road that takes you to the Vilharino da Furna dam. At the crossing point you will have the choice between Vilharino das Furnas and Mata de Albergaria, park there (if driving).

"Follow the Geira route which begins in front of the stone wall, at the side of the dam, It is marked by plaques with general informaiton and the history of the Geira. You will quicky find the start of the route."

From Terras de Bouro
Head East North East on paths towards the villages of Seara and Freitas. You will cross the Geira, which is heading north, and be able to start walking along it towards the village of Covide. (This is what I did).

View from Geira Roman Road just outside Campo do Geres

From Campo do Geres
The path passes the Parque de Cerdeira Campsite on the outskirts of the village


From Lobios in Spain (heading south along the Geira rather than north)
Follow the road running SSW towards Portela do Homen/Portugal. Stay off of the road and on parrallel paths wherever possible after Tornerios - intially the paths run on the east side and then on the west side of the road)- you will see from the roman paving that these paths are the true route of the Geira. Immediately after the Portela do Homen border the roman road (via romana) is marked on the map, running south west away from the road. You can then pick up the Portugues marking of the route.