Underlying the concept of Slow Tourism is the slow pace and deceleration of time, when everything tends towards vertigo and acceleration. But the slowness it embodies is the exact opposite of boredom. It's actually meant to be an alternative to the rush of mass travel, which is monotonous and falsely exciting.

Slow Tourism is certainly indebted to the Slow Food movement, born in Italy and now firmly rooted everywhere. It calls for a long stay, contemplation, synchronisation of the senses, a broad curiosity about the variety of geographies, landscapes, heritage, products and ways of life. It's a denial of travelling as pure entertainment that exhausts itself and adds little or nothing of relevance. Like the hunger left behind by bad food produced exactly for that purpose.

And when we talk about Slow Tourism, we're talking about sustainability. Preserving the diversity and richness of the world, ways of life that seem anachronistic but perhaps aren't so, natural spaces, products threatened with extinction without anything to justify it, cultural knowledge and expressions that reject the nefarious standardisation that narrows horizons and perceptions. To travel is to see beyond your eyes, to feel your heart beat and your spirit overflow.

And that's what we have to offer in the Minho Highlands, where there's so much to experience. Intensely. Firstly, the lush nature that invites you to dilute and immerse yourself in the senses. Remote villages and breathtaking landscapes. A rich historical heritage. Exceptional products, no more so than elsewhere, but distinctive because they are the genuine expression of this region's culture. There's all this and much more.  To come, discover, experience, leaving and wanting to come back.