Just found this video on social media about a french team (PEK) that went to kayak in the Laboreiro River.
The Laboreiro River is born in Castro Laboreiro – Melgaço – Portugal and in its final kilometers acts as a natural border, separating Portugal from Spain.
I don’t know your kayak skills but the beauty of this relatively unexplored place is worth it.
By the amount of water flowing and the last part of the video you can tell they did this in winter.
Today I stumbled on this great video on Youtube about the Nature Conservation Park located in both Northern Portugal and the Spanish region of Galicia.
On the Portuguese side one of the doors to the Park is actually in “Lamas de Mouro” – Melgaço if you drive around 20 minutes up mountain from the town.
As you can see it in the video it is a beatiful place with ancient ruins from “Stone Age” dolmens to Roman bridges.
Check a list and GPS coordinates HERE (new tab).
The mountais are covered with giant round shaped rocks some of them famous for their curious shape. There is also a lot of small rivers, waterfals from many sizes and small lakes.
Wild animals include wild flurry horses (video 0:46) and deers. There are wolves too but don’t expect to see them as they are scarce nowadays and the ones that are left are intelligent enough to avoid humans.
Now that I moved to Hungary I’ve had the chance to explore quite a few European Conservation Parks and usual mountain/forest destinations in Austria, Hungary, Croacia and Slovenia, so I can make you comparison with this places.
The first difference is that “Gerês” is not such a popular place. For some strange reason it seems that the European tourists usually don’t travel West by car. Last year I was in Slovenia and I had never seen so many German, French and Italian cars parked together. So if you want to explore on your own and prefer under-the-radar places this is a plus.
The second difference are Ticks. As crazy as it may sound, yes, ticks – those blood sucking parasites are a plague for forest-travelers in most of Central Europe. Everyone who lives here always packs a tick-removal tool for their travels, take B-vitamin or use some repelent spray. This was something completly new for someone used to hike in Portugal.
The third and last difference is in fact a disadvantage for the non-popularity of this place. While there are tourist oportunities for radical sports, hiking, rent-a-bike, rent-a-boat and others, you should search online and take notes of what you want to do and where before traveling.
Enjoy the video!
Blitzwood @Spotify
Here’s a really nice video from Porto filmed with camera-equiped-drone. I need to buy something like this!
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If you want to see some really amazing photos from Portugal don’t miss the “Descobrir Portugal” (Discover Portugal) group in Facebook! There’s a bit of everything and a bit from everywhere in the photos shared by the community. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/absolutportugal . Here are some examples:
Lisbon from Airplane window
After our one day trip we finally arrived to Lisbon. I think it has a different feel from any other capital in Europe. In one hand there’s of course the good Southern Europe weather and sunlight illuminating it on the other hand there’s historical reasons.
Recent history has been kind in the looks of the city. While other countries were deep into World War II, Portugal remained neutral in the conflict saving monuments from bullet marks, bombing, rebuilding and other tragedies. The last time Lisbon had to undergo a major reconstruction was in the 1755 earthquake. Then it got the shape of a modern city with straight, large parallel streets downtown facing the river.
History also gave the city a cosmopolitan feeling. Lisbon was the center of a maritime Empire with colonies in America, Africa and Asia and you can see influences from distant lands in many landmarks, museums and in trees that don’t seem to belong in Europe.
Due to our errands we didn’t have so much time for sightseeing so I included some photos I took another time I was here in October 2010.
There’s plenty of photos and information on Lisbon in the internet but feel free to check our photos. There’s a photo I took from an airplane window arriving to Lisbon Airport showing the “25th of April” Bridge and the Cristo Redentor (a similar statue to that existing in Rio de Janeiro – Brazil).
In case you are missing it Rock in Rio Live in Youtube. Just follow the link
I’m really sorry to all the band fans that I didn’t post about Rock in Rio Lisbon before. I really didn’t know there would be live transmision in Youtube (it seems just for users outside of Portugal).
The line up is really impressive, check it if there will be one of your favourite bands at http://rockinriolisboa.sapo.pt/cartaz-rock-in-rio-lisboa-2012 .
Metallica, Evanescence, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, The Offspring and others were this weekend. Here’s a bit of how it was:
Now let’s wait for next weekend with Bryan Adams, Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone, Bruce Springsteen, Lenny Kravitz, Maroon5 and others.
The plan was never to go straight from Porto to Lisbon. We left with enough time to stop somewhere for lunch (it turned out to be Nazaré) and before arriving to Lisbon we decided to stop again. We turned West to a different highway towards a quite famous tourist location – Sintra.
There are many landmarks concentrated in such a small area: A Moorish Castle, the Pena Palace, the Monserrate Palace… And we only had the time to visit one of them so it was a difficult choice. We went to Monserrate: a beautiful palace and gardens from the eighteen hundreds by a millionaire Englishman.
The gardens were beautiful even if it wasn’t spring yet (29th Feb). There are plants there from many origins around the world and it gives you the feeling you are inside some story or magical fable. There are small water paths everywhere and a lake decorating the landscape and you can see the Atlantic Ocean in the background. You can also find the ruins of a chapel which apparently was engulfed by Nature.
The mansion is quite unique too and is currently under repair works. I can’t imagine living in a house with so much details everywhere, from a simple door to the corridor with a fountain in the middle.
Judge by yourself from our photos:
It’s been a while since my last post and with my complicated work hours I can only check some blogs from time to time and haven’t payed attention to my own.
This last February I had to go South to Lisbon to take care of some paper work. I went by car and took the A8 highway. The first stop was in Nazaré, a ocean-side village particularly famous to surf fans after some youtube video (check it down).
I had never been there but the view of the landscape and of the waves in the Atlantic Ocean was sure worth it.
For the lunch I decided for one of the backstreet restaurants. I usually prefer those because they have to impress the customers with their food while the restaurants in front of the beach can rely on the view.
Not so much time to blog nowadays. Here are some nice photos from Portugal. Don’t forget to check my other posts or categories for more.
After the rating agency “Moody’s” downgraded Portugal 4 levels to “Junk” level there has been a lot of anti-Moody’s activity by some inspired Portuguese.
There were also some internet attacks to Moody’s site one of which took their server down. As a result Portuguese IPs have been blocked by Moodys.com
Even with all this Economy news I hope Portugal is still in your destination wishlist. Here are some photos I took this last Friday in Matosinhos to cure us from the economy stress:
By the way, my “thank you” to the European Union for believing that we’ll pay our debt againts Moody’s opinion.
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