The ancestral impulse to walk
Walking in nature is a primitive impulse. An eruption of happiness.
As Frédéric Gros writes, it is the freedom “of being nobody, because the walking body has no history; it is only an immemorial flow of life. A two-legged animal moving forward, pure force among tall trees. A cry. And often we cry out to express this recovered animal presence”Walking: A Philosophy).
Walking restores that elemental presence that precedes identities, functions and the rush of contemporary life.
The mountain as a space of resonance
We propose to walk three stages of the Grande Rota Peneda-Gerês (GR50), an itinerary crossing mountain territory at the heart of Portugal’s only National Park. Even as a fragment of the full route, it is enough to awaken the ancestral nomadic spirit, surrendered to the invigorating silence of the landscape and to a continuous sequence of sensory stimuli.
To this natural dimension are added medieval and more recent heritage, as well as the persistent traces of an old rural culture, emerging along the path as living signs of a territory inhabited for centuries.
Here, the landscape is not a backdrop — it is a counterpart.
Demanding trails, deep experiences
In the same region, though outside the Grande Rota, we also propose a remarkable mountain route: the Peneda Trail. Circular, physically demanding and extraordinarily beautiful, it offers an intense and deeply rewarding experience.
Farther from the high mountains, on the slopes of the Vez River, we invite you to discover trails that lead into the rural world of other times — subsistence farming shaped by steep and challenging terrain. At a slow pace and with attentive eyes, we follow the terraces of Sistelo, classified as a Cultural Landscape and National Monument, along ancient paths and nearly forgotten tracks.
Paths to return to
As we move forward, the richness of the landscape becomes evident, revealing itself differently at every angle and every bend in the trail. The land never exhausts itself — it responds anew each time.
These are not trails to collect.
They are trails one wants to return to.
