Penela

Yesterday we went to Penela to explore a little. We visited the information centre and the lady there was really helpful and spoke some English. She gave us leaflets and a map of places to visit in the surrounding area.

We spent quite some time looking around the castle (free entry). There was quite a lot of it to explore, though there were some odd constructions/houses scattered about, that we thought might be left over from Christmas grottos.

The views from the castle were fantastic. In the distance we could see snow topped mountains that were part of the Serra da Lousa.



After Penela we visited a miradouro (viewpoint) to get a glimpse of a 25m waterfall called Pedra da Ferida (Wounded Stone). On our way there we noticed signs for a river beach higher up in the mountains called Praia Fluvial da Louçainha (pic below). We made our way there and were not disappointed. This place is a natural fresh water river beach on the mountain road from Campelo to Lousa and has the usual infrastructure of restaurant, toilets, picnic/barbecue area etc. Of course in winter it was deserted, the roads were icy and there was snow all around.



After visiting the river beach we headed home as we wanted to go a different route back to avoid some of the icy roads we had encountered near Gois/Lousa on the way out that morning.