Self guided walking vacation in the Douro valley

Planet

1-week self-guided walking vacation in northeast Portugal. Journey through prehistoric lands to witness dramatic rock formations, endangered wildlife, historical villages and ancient cultures.

Our self-guided hikes follow rural backroads and paths through a fascinating landscape with undulating countryside, vineyards, valleys and villages, offering you the chance to enjoy the local flora and fauna with negligible environmental impact.

We use some accommodations for multiple nights in order to reduce the need for luggage transfers. When these are necessary, we use local taxi drivers to reduce carbon emissions and support the local economy. Encouraging public transport from Porto is another way of doing our bit for the environment.

Since the quality of tap water is excellent in Portugal, we give you a refillable bottle to use during your walking vacation and beyond. We supply rechargeable batteries for use with the GPS devices that clients use on our self-guided programmes.

Clients also have access to an App for their route, which reduces the need for printing information, such as roadbooks for each person.

We also encourage guests not to waste water by not taking overly-long showers or leaving lights on when not needed.

People

To make sure that money stays within the small local communities that you spend time in, you will stay in a combination of small, unique hotels and family-run rural lodgings, which offer an insight into local history and culture. Some of these accommodations produce their own wine, olive oil and fruit, from which they make and serve home-made jams that can also be purchased as gifts/souvenirs.

The daily lunch pack contains fresh, local produce and we encourage you to dine at hospitable local restaurants to sample traditional regional dishes, engage with the owners, chef or servers and, of course, taste local wines.
Most of the walking days involve passing through small hillside villages where you are welcome to stop at local cafés, bakeries and grocery or craft stores in order to get a sense of what local life is like and interact with the residents. You will also get to see cheese production in action.

This trail is in two very special parks near the border with Spain, where rural traditions and agricultural practices are still evident. You’ll probably see shepherds with their flocks in Vilar de Amargo and you’ll be staying on a farmhouse for a few nights where Margarida will be happy to share her local knowledge. Marco, your host in Vilar de Amargo, is also a font of information about the local history, culture, flora and fauna and he’ll be taking you to the cheese factory and the rock art site.