Why northern Portugal should be your next road trip destination
Lisbon: In Portugal’s wild northern borderlands, survival and spirituality go hand in hand with the changing seasons, as they have for millennia. A road trip through its remote reaches uncovers pagan festivals, age-old crafts and Roman relics in the country’s only national park, Peneda-Gerês.
Of all the seasons in Portugal, summer is the longest and most beloved, with warm days crowned by burnished sunsets reaching well into the harvest months. In the busy cities and beach towns of the country’s south, it can be easy to deny the subtle shifts in the landscape that signal the tiptoe into autumn. But in the country’s untamed north, the scenery demands to be read: amber grapes swell on trellised vines, chestnut groves pound the earth with their fruit and fat mushrooms bloom in forests simmering with golden leaves. The signs are unmistakable on my drive from Porto to the hamlet of Amares, in the depths of the Minho region.
Yet perhaps I still have summer on my mind as I launch myself from a meadow bank into the waters of the Cávado River in Amares. The cold is breath-stealing but I swim determinedly for the centre and then float, skittish water boatmen gathering around my limbs as the ripples settle. This riverbend, cradled by forest and serenaded by the rush of a nearby cascade, was once the refuge of Cistercian monks. Their grand 12th-century monastery is just up the hillside, now the region’s most striking and storied five-star hotel, Pousada Mosteiro de Amares. It’s hard not to imagine their white-robed presence in this place, so little changed by time; and to think of how they’d have relished the silence and perhaps marked the presence of the divine in nature.
A shallow waterfall in a stony, sloping river bordered by vegetation.
Portugal’s lesser-visited northern borderlands, which I’m here to explore on a week-long road trip, are said to be the most pious part of the country. In the south, the locals speak of it in reverent tones — of its wild beauty, hearty mountain cuisine and seemingly ceaseless calendar of Catholic festivals. Perhaps it is no bad thing I have baptised myself in its river waters. Pousada Mosteiro de Amares is an apt place to spend my first night, too: the style with which the abandoned monastery was renovated by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura in the 1990s speaks to a trend that continues to gather momentum in these parts — of salvaging and celebrating the heritage of the region for posterity.
The next morning, skies that were yesterday cornflower blue are blanketed with bruised clouds. “The first rains of the season,” says my energetic, long-haired mountain guide Bryan Viche of Gerês Equi’Desafios when we meet at the adventure company’s headquarters in the village of Campo de Gerês. “Hiking is my first love but a 4WD tour is a great compromise in this weather.” We’re heading into Peneda-Gerês — Portugal’s only national park, which sprawls for almost 270sq miles over four granite massifs. It’s dotted with a hundred traditional stone villages that appear to have changed very little since the country’s founding in the 12th century.
Bryan parks his battered 4WD at a viewpoint that turns out to be blanketed in thick fog, forcing us to admire the smaller details we might otherwise have missed: feathery lichen, bright gorse and a profusion of violet blooms around our feet. “These flowers only appear at the cusp of spring and autumn,” he says. “This is my favourite time of year. Out on remote trails, you can hear the goats clashing horns and the deer calling for mates.” We drive on, pursuing snaking roads paved along ancient cattle tracks, occasionally crossing into Spanish territory. Steep waterfalls and tumbledown shepherd huts loom out of the haze. There are also semi-wild garrano horses, long-horned cachena and barrosã cows, all endemic to the region. “Weather like this is perfect for the park’s 300 wolves, too — the mists camouflage them for hunting. They’ll be busy today,” Bryan says.
My guide grew up exploring the park and knows its secrets and stories, and those of the people who’ve attempted to tame this land over the millennia. We tour remnants of a 205-mile Roman trading road, Via XVIII, first built almost 2,000 years ago to connect modern-day Braga, Portugal’s oldest city, and Astorga in northwestern Spain. Clusters of tall, cylindrical mile-markers and stone tablets, some still showing Latin characters, erupt from the moss at intervals throughout the woods — the finest collection of their kind anywhere in the world.
We also stop to take in a hydroelectric dam that flooded the thriving village of Vilarinho da Furna in 1972 during the dying years of the Estado Novo regime, a year after the national park was designated. “The dictatorship wanted to crush the resistance of this community — it was remote, self-governed and aided smuggling operations across the closed border,” Bryan says. During hot spells or when the water levels drop, the village appears to rise from the reservoir. The abandoned houses offer a ghostly premonition of what may yet happen to the park’s remaining agricultural settlements. “This ancient way of life — of communal farming, the agricultural wisdom, the folk traditions — is worth preserving,” he says. But with some 40% of the Peneda-Gerês’ population moving away in the last 30 years, it’ll take a new generation to turn the tide.
A laughing woman leaning against a wooden table in front of a wooden wall.
Bryan takes me to meet Rita Costa Pinto de Barros in her whimsical produce shop, Loja do Parque, in the unfortunately named village of Covide. Watercolours of mushrooms decorate the walls between shelves stacked with herbs and honey, while a gargantuan 35lb gourd occupies most of the counter. “During the pandemic, my husband and I had the idea of moving out of Braga and opening a centre up here to promote organic products and resurrect lost traditions,” she says. “We’re not alone — we’ve met lots of people coming north to make art, to build lives, to live more communally in nature.”
Rita has built a network of 70 producers to supply her shop, not just from around the national park but more broadly from the UNESCO-designated trans-border Gerês-Xurés Biosphere Reserve. “The border with Spain is just 900 years old. We’ve been the same people for millennia, sharing the same culture,” Rita explains. Every jar and bottle has a story: the beekeeper experimenting with sweet craft beer; the distiller using mountain herbs to make gin in an abandoned school; the botanist nun harvesting medicinal plants. “There’s so much to learn from these locals, their creativity and sense of community,” she says, ringing up a jar of honey that smells of wildflowers then waving us off into the rain.
While not blessed with the romance or riverfront settings of Lisbon and Porto, venerable Braga — Portugal’s third-largest city, about an hour away from Rita’s Loja do Parque shop — pulls out all the stops when it comes to religiosity. On Sunday mornings, pews are packed, which I discover as I attempt to tour a selection out of more than 200 bombastically ornate churches, chapels and oratories. Among the most notable is the hilltop Bom Jesus de Monte, reached by a 17-landing staircase or a creaky funicular.
By the time I arrive at the main event, Braga Cathedral, and meet my affable city tour guide João Gomes, it’s late in the day and a serious charm offensive is required to gain access. It pays off and we’re let inside to marvel at the building’s grand bones. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary in 1089, it predates the founding of the country and shows off soaring architecture that climbs through layers of romanesque, gothic, Manueline and baroque style. A series of mausoleums are unlocked for us by a stooped acolyte wielding heavy, antique keys, one of which reveals the remains of mummified archbishop Lourenço Vicente, who died in 1397. “In Portugal, we have a saying if something’s old: ‘it’s more ancient than the cathedral of Braga’,” João whispers.
A look into the arched interior of a cathedral with its altar and mosaic windows.
“What really sets the north apart is the power of the church. The influence in daily life here is significant; even the main newspaper is run by the church,” João tells me once we’re back outside, now stood in the shadow of the adjacent Archbishop’s Palace. “And there are historical reasons for this.” Even during the long rule of the Moors in the Middle Ages, Christianity flourished in these parts, making it a strategic base for crusaders to retake the kingdom. The bishops of Braga were rewarded with vast lands for their help in creating a unified Portuguese state under King Afonso I in 1143, ruling as feudal warrior-lords until the republican uprising of 1910.
Though I don’t encounter any religious festivals during my time in Braga, I do stumble upon another form of city pageantry in the Praça da República. Here in the heart of Braga, accordion players have gathered around the bandstand, leading a sea of couples in a jaunty fandango. I’m savouring the music and the autumnal incense of a nearby chestnut-roasting cart when an elderly gentleman offers me his hand. “These folk dances will die if young people don’t learn them,” João scolds lightly, as I politely turn him down, feeling too shy to join the festivities.
Alarm clocks turn out to be redundant in Braga, thanks to the cheerful pealing of church bells for first prayers, but the early start allows me a leisurely drive to the pretty town of Barcelos with its medieval bridge and ruined ducal palace — an important stop for pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago. Here, I’ve arranged a workshop with brothers Moisés and Vítor Baraça, fourth-generation ceramicists — part of a network of artists specialising in folk crafts that gained the town a UNESCO Creative City designation in 2017.
They meet me at the door wearing paint-splattered aprons and warm smiles. The light-filled atelier is lined with figurados, brightly painted pottery animals and rural characters. The brothers work in the same rustic style their grandmother Ana Baraça became known for in the 1960s. At that time, female potters, whose uncelebrated work was sold cheaply as children’s toys at markets, started drawing the attention of academics and collectors.
Two older men with paint-specked aprons painting small figurines in their arts studio.
“We make these as a living memory of the old times, preserved for future generations,” Moisés says, carefully applying paint to figurines of a religious procession on his workbench. “This art form wasn’t valued until more recently. Our grandmother didn’t sign her work — it was just something to earn a little extra money,” Vítor adds, absent-mindedly rolling clay between his fingers. Back then, men were the main artisans and breadwinners, and women like Ana worked with their clay offcuts, plugging gaps in the kiln with their small creations. Today, figurados produced in Barcelos are considered part of Portugal’s cultural patrimony — one of the brothers’ ceramic roosters was even gifted to a president of France.
They show me how to sculpt a miniature version, shaping balls for the rooster’s body and head, and making impressionistic cuts with a wooden tool for its beak and comb. My fingers fumble the clay, refusing to mimic the surety with which the brothers can form creatures from mere earth. “We learnt at our grandmother’s knee. Clay is therapy for us,” Vítor says, as we move our creations into the sun to dry. Their children have other interests and the brothers say they’re not sure what will become of the family business, but they remain upbeat. Where once young people left Barcelos to make their fortunes, art and tourism are creating opportunities. “Ana would be very surprised — and very proud,” he adds.
Less than an hour’s drive away, in the small parish of Vila Verde, another tradition rooted in the landscape of the north has been lovingly revived — and has hit the mainstream. “We were amazed to see that the lenços dos namorados [‘lovers’ handkerchiefs’] inspired patterns on the Portuguese Olympic team’s uniforms in Paris,” Cristina Lopes tells me when I sit down with her and her four colleagues in their embroidery shop and atelier. “Although I don’t think many people know the tradition was saved here.”
Looking over the shoulder of a woman hand stitching a handkerchief with love-related motifs.
Hand-stitched handkerchiefs like the ones made at Aliança Artesanal are a tradition rooted in the landscape of the North.
Examples of these handkerchiefs are spread across the table: squares of white linen finely stitched with colourful nature motifs and romantic messages in looping writing. In the 1970s, a young Cristina decided to research the faded 18th-century courtship tradition of minhotas — young country girls from the Minho region — gifting these to intended suitors. “Depending how prominently the boy would wear her handiwork, the village knew if they were a couple,” Cristina says. “I discovered lots of love stories as I talked to families, and lots of broken hearts, too.”
Aliança Artesanal was founded in 1988 to continue the art form, complete with misspelled words reminiscent of a lovelorn teenager. Today, the women also take commissions, creating custom pieces to celebrate engagements and special occasions. “The work is hard but the power of the original love stories keeps me motivated; every girl had a story she wanted to tell through her sewing,” Cristina says. “If this is my legacy, I am proud.”
While the northern reaches of the Minho feel a world apart from the rest of Portugal, they do little to prepare me for the drive east, along meandering mountain roads, into Trás-os-Montes. The landscape is stark and elemental, like nothing else in the country: weather-beaten high plateaus and terraced fields are punctuated by lonely cottages, while lumpen peaks fold dark lakes into their crevasses. With patchy phone reception, I pull over to ask directions from an aged shepherd. He’s puffing on a rolled cigarette to keep the insects at bay. “Everyone loves the cheese but no one wants to look after the sheep these days,” he grumbles, pointing me in the right direction.
A trail with views on a green-covered, mountainous landscape, along fenced orchards.
Arriving in the remote village of Podence, I meet up with adventure guide João Neves, a former army major and co-founder of tour company PortugalNTN. “This is the real Portugal. In the interior, you find the essence of the country,” he promises. “The people are kind, the landscape is wild and the food is better, too.” Over the coming days, João will prove his points, taking me to drink at the mineral-rich hot springs of his hometown, Chaves; to picnic and sail amid the serpentine waterways of Lagos do Sabor; and to try meat-heavy dishes at restaurants where the portion sizes seem designed to hospitalise diners.
But this morning is all about showcasing the licentious and pagan traditions cultivated in Trás-os-Montes over centuries of isolation, for which Podence takes the crown. João takes me on a walk through the community, home to some 200 people, where the stone cottages are decorated with giant murals of masked monsters covered in tassels and cowbells, called caretos. I’d have said they belonged in a nightmare except there are two galloping down the lane towards us. João looks at ease so I try to relax as the men, clearly friends of my guide, growl and leap around us in what must be incredibly heavy costumes.
“I asked the guys to give you a taste of what happens here each year in the four-day run-up to Shrove Tuesday,” João explains, laughing. “The Carnival of Podence pre-dates the Romans, that’s how deep its roots are.” Since time immemorial, the young men here have donned costumes and leering masks to become caretos and playfully terrorise the community and its young women, scaling balconies to steal kisses and sneaking into cellars to taste wine. Some 30,000 people descend on the community for the party — and interest in the festival has boomed since UNESCO added it to the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list in 2019.
Dancers dressed in tasseled costumes with leather masks covering their faces, dance in front a museum dedicated to the carnival.
“It’s our most important event. People living abroad, or who’ve left the village, don’t come home for Easter or Christmas — they come home for this,” says Sofia Pombares when we visit her careto costume workshop, Quinta do Pomar. In her mid-20s, she’s by far the youngest artisan I’ve met during my time in the north. Here, since 2017, she has welded tin and crafted leather for the angular masks and elaborate woollen outfits on an antique loom. Where once the crafting of costumes was an expression of individuality and creativity for each family, she’s now one of only two people in the community with the knowledge to make them. “It’s a lot of pressure,” she admits.
As with the rural areas of the Minho, Trás-os-Montes has weathered significant depopulation over recent decades. But Sofia is proud to have stayed, to be a part of a movement weaving traditions into the present day. When she was growing up, women weren’t encouraged to participate as caretos — but today, it’s open to anyone. “That’s how I met my husband, actually. I asked to borrow his costume. I wanted to run through the streets, to jump over the bonfires,” she says.
Fire, symbolising the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, is a key part of the carnival. On the final night, a giant effigy of a careto will be set ablaze — its flaming, raised arms signalling the end of winter and the start of spring. It’s a rite I’m keen to return for. In Portugal’s far north, a land both pious and pagan, the landscape demands to be read, to be celebrated. Survival and spirituality go hand in hand with the changing seasons, as they have for millennia.
