Another gorgeous day here on the Douro river.  Of course we are up and out, for our pretty morning walk into the vineyard. Today, not so far and not so high, but high enough for more gorgeous pictures across the vines and the river. 

Completing our walk, we circle down around town on the river, then come up onto the main street near our apartment. Today we decided to visit the other bakery in town for our last pastel de nata – yikes!  They are super expensive.  Should have gone back to the sweet little girl from the day before.  Oh well – live and learn. But at least we have our breakfast treats.

All packed and loaded, we set off for our 3-hour drive to Aldeadavila in Spain.  Our first stop is the Miradouro do Ujo, a beautiful overlook high above one of the sharp turns of the Douro river.  A spectacular place to drink in the scenery on a beautiful sunshining day.  Made even better by the fact that we met the sweetest couple up there – from Germany most likely – who are trying to take pictures of the wife and her baby bump.  She is maybe 3 or 4 months pregnant, just showing, and they want a picture here to send to her father who they have not told yet!  Oh my gosh.  Too sweet.  So, of course we must play photographer. I have the best time taking pictures of them together, and posing them to get the best baby bump exposure, along with the scenery.  Made our day!  Our only regret is that we didn’t get a picture of them – or the 4 of us – but that seemed a bit, well, creepy, in a way!  So – we’ll just have the memory with pictures of the Miradouro and of us, courtesy of baby bump and her hubby.

Back on our route, we head toward Spain, on virtually empty roads, through fabulous mountain scenery, that remind us so much of the Blue Ridge mountains stretching out into the distance. 

The more inland we go, the more the scenery changes.  We go from 100% vineyards to occasional vines mixed in with tons of olive tree groves, lots of scrub and lots of rocks.  And along the way, somewhere – who knows where – we’ve switched to following the Sabor river.  Albeit high above the banks on the winding mountain road. 

After about an hour and a half we reach the turn off for the Carrascalinnho lookout which will put back above the Douro river with a view across to Spain. But first…we must drive the road.  Oh my God!  And I swear, this isn’t just some weird Cathy/Google Maps I’m gonna kill ya thing either. This is an honest to God real live Miradouro that is written up everywhere as one of the top places to go.  I mean, it is a one-lane bumpy road in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  With nothing and nobody around. Which in the end is probably a good thing!

The scenery is amazing – even if a little nerve wracking! And we know we’ve arrived when we see the swing. Yep. The swing. Obviously a thing here as the other lookout on our way to Pinhao that we never made had one too.  Of course I’m going to partake!

The challenging road was absolutely worthwhile for this view.  The river is gorgeous way, way, way down below us.  The rocks, the trees, the geography couldn’t be better.  We spend quite some time just wandering around, gazing at the Douro and Spain and reveling in the solitary beauty.

Unfortunately, while bright and sunny, it is windy as heck up here.  So our plans for our picnic lunch are scuttled. We try to find something that is leeward, but can’t find anywhere we can get out of the wind. So, car picnic it is!  Leftover ham and cheese sandwiches on those great rolls we got – complete with mustard of course. 

Reversing our course, we make it out the one lane road without any oncoming traffic – phew – and continue on our journey toward Spain.  Just because we were looking at Spain from the Miradouro doesn’t mean we are close!  We still have about 30 minutes of driving before we cross the border.

And poof – just like that – we cross the Douro, we cross the border, and we are now 1 hour later!  Messes with our heads – totally!  But the scenery is still gorgeous, if not totally different – it was like crossing the border brought us into a whole other planet or something. Weird.  All rocks and craggy mountains and nary a vineyard in sight. 

Stopping at the Mirador del Salto (Spanish now – no more Portuguese!), we take a few minutes to breath in the fresh air and take in the stunning view across the Douro (now spelled Deuro).  We also make use of a gazebo and picnic bench to have our dessert of expensive pastel de nata. 

Then we are back in the car, heading to Aldeadavila, where we luckily catch the desk clerk in attendance and check in. Or try to check in, she doesn’t speak a word of English and she can’t find our reservation. Uh oh.  After a couple of panic-induced minutes she finally realizes the reservation is under “Ed” not “Edward” Stevens and all is right with the world. Phew.  She gives us our key and mimes how to lock the front door and where the room is located (2^nd floor – 2 fingers held up).  Next, she whips out a map of the town and all the hiking and viewpoints around and proceeds to give us instructions on where to go and how to go there, how far things are from the parking lot, etc.  She also points out the restaurants in town, only one of which is open for dinner.  Oh, ok.  Priceless! And all without a single word of English.  This is too fun.

After our area lesson, we scoot upstairs to a lovely room at the end of the hallway with 2 windows that catch the wonderful breeze – and A/C if we need it – but no mini-fridge.  Hmmmmm……well, the cooler with the 2 frozen water bottles will have to suffice for now and I can always drink warm wine.  Warm beer is another issue, but we’ll deal with that when we return. 

Bags dropped, we head out into the wilds of the region looking for the Pozo de los Humos waterfalls.  We had already marked them on the map from AllTrails, and our sweet desk clerk had shown us where to go – so following a ballpoint pen line on the map, we head off through Masueco and Santa Cruz (little teeny towns) and out into farmland.  Of course the GPS is trying to send us down these small, narrow dirt roads, but we are following hotel lady’s drawn in map coz that seems the most prudent. Even though it does send us through Pereña de la Ribera, which is another teeny little town with narrow cobblestone lanes and treacherous corners – but at least we are on paved roads for a longer time.  Until……we aren’t!

The road from Pereña to the lookout parking is even worse than the road to Carrascalinnho!  The humps and bumps and holes and well – it’s an experience, let us just say that.  We know that in 2K there is a parking area (thank you hotel lady – talk about detail!) and then we can walk down to the viewpoint – and let me tell you, those 2K can’t come quick enough!

Finally arriving at the parking area, we grab our bags and head off down the dirt road toward the viewing area.  It is another 2K walking this time through scrub and rocky terrain – beautiful and peaceful and gorgeous – and we are basically all alone in our hike. 

Until a couple of cars come down the road too – and we find there is a parking area right near the lookout. Either hotel lady didn’t know or thought it would be a better experience to walk – and really, we’re fine with that.  Because the first 2K of road was bad enough, this section was even worse and no way would we want to drive our car down here.  Plus – when did we ever turn down a walk? Through the countryside?

Our efforts are rewarded once we arrive at the viewpoint.  The views are spectacular.  Pozos de los Humos (literally translated as Smoke wells) is a waterfall that drops 50 meters down a rock wall to the Uces River with a second waterfall beside it, called Pozo de las Vacas (yep – cows – of course there would be cows!). Up above the waterfall on the slopes of the mountain are olive groves – obviously a hugely important crop in this area as we have seen driving in.  There are tons of birds here too – soaring around and finding shelter in the granite rocks and outcroppings.

It is an incredibly beautiful sight – and would be quite lovely to sit and watch except for the family that is already here and taking up all the space on the rocks at the edge of cliff used for viewing. And who move around when they see we want to sit on the rocks for photos – effectively blocking us from doing what they are doing.  Nice.

Oh well – you know, people, what can you do?  We aren’t going to let their ugliness ruin this gorgeous view and place so we just take our photos and move on to the other end of the viewing area to look at the other smaller waterfall, the Cascada del Cribera or waterfall of the Cribera stream.  It descends 100 meters before meeting the Uces river and while much narrower than Humos, still gorgeous to view across the river canyon.

Completing our sightseeing, we reverse course back up the dirt road to the car…

…and back to Pereña where we try to go to the next waterfall, Cascada del Pinero, but that road is even worse and we decide to be safe rather than sorry, making a u-turn as soon as the road allows and heading back to the safety of Aldeadavila – driving once again through Pereña, this time stopping for all the great murals painted on the buildings.

Back in Aldeadavila, we wandered through the little town, passing the town square with the statue dedicated to the memory of farmers, shepherds and cowboys who settled here and knew how to transform and maintain all the lands that are now the National park. Past the church constructed in 1610 and on through the rest of the very quiet and sleepy little town.

We wandered past the restaurant, Paraiso, that would be our only dinner choice and decided instead to hit the local grocery store for rolls and snacks and use up the rest of our left-over cold cuts for a picnic dinner.  What the heck?  Plus, they had cold beer – so all worked perfectly well and we spent a lovely evening outside on the back porch area of the hotel, eating, drinking and enjoying the cool crisp weather.  Couldn’t have been any better!