Cultural landscape and biodiversity reserve

Sistelo, in the region of Arcos de Valdevez, is a unique village. Recognized as a Cultural Landscape and National Monument, it is also a biodiversity sanctuary — a lush garden on the slopes of the crystal-clear and inspiring Vez River.

Walking slowly, reading the landscape

The best way to discover this breathtaking place is to walk slowly and in silence. On ancient paths, along the Vez ecovia or on trails that offer panoramic views over the terraces, the Vez and Miño valleys and the mountains of Galicia. Here, every step is an experience of visual and sensitive reading of the territory.

Seeing, understanding, deepening

For those who aren't keen on long walks, there are several viewpoints where you can contemplate the landscape from different angles. But Sistelo doesn't stop at the view: it's important to explore the town's history and delve into its traditions and cultural peculiarities. The archaic world that survives here can still teach a lot to the urban, fast-paced and hyper-technological societies of the present and the future.

Memory, art and figures of place

Without detracting from the countless anonymous figures who made this legacy possible, it is worth learning about the Viscount of Sistelo and the Viscountess Júlia Labourdonnay, painters whose lives were divided between Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon and Paris at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and whose artistic sensibility dialogued with the landscape that surrounded them.

Experience of time and presence

A visit to the Cultural Landscape Interpretive Centre, housed in Casa do Castelo - a building commissioned by the Viscount of Sistelo and his brother, the Viscount of Rio Vez - provides a better understanding of the relationship between the territory, history and the community.
Make this visit a full day of discovery. Don't go to Sistelo just to go. Go to feel, understand and stay. There is an experience of time, landscape and presence there that only reveals itself to those who walk carefully.