After a solid day of walking and working, Thursday was our relax day. Nothing more relaxing to start the day than a nice hike in the mountains! So we got up at 5am and.. BWAHAHA who am I fooling?! We got up at 8:30am and at 9am we started with the excellent (and included!) breakfast downstairs. They have legit chefs making a huge array of different foods every morning, and they mix it up each day. They also make eggs and maybe other things to order. The only downside is that we feel obligated to try everything so we eat . a lot (by we, we mean Jesse) … Not complaining because damn these fruits, cheeses, croissants, breads.. they’re all so fresh.

Ok now we really did drive off to go hiking. Since we’re staying on a mountainside already, the drive was down, around, back up.. and since this isn’t a touristy area at all there was very little traffic. Our destination and trail head was the small, beautiful village of Cortes do Meio. As with most of the areas we’ve visited outside of the Algarve, Lisbon, and Porto, there were very few signs of life in town. Not because it’s deserted, but because people are just living their lives and again it’s not a tourist scene. It’s so refreshingly in contrast to landmark-hopping in big cities. Two residents did greet us energetically though..

I picked this hike for several reasons:

• ~650 ft total elevation gain over ~3.5 miles and non-technical, so relatively easy on Savitri’s injured leg
• Nearby (we had an appointment at 2pm we could NOT miss! ..see below)
• Focus on natural beauty. All hikes are like that hopefully, but this was reputed to be particularly soothing
• Winds through local farm communities. Another type of natural beauty

Ok.. a ton of GREEN coming!

There is no question why Portugal is famous for its green pools. These mountain rivers are crystal clear (Vermonters know what this means, but most city-dwellers do NOT!), very cold, and there is NO garbage in there.

We see a few pieces of trash on the trails at some really popular sites but it is new (meaning people are picking it up quickly) and uncommon. The water is rushing down steep slopes too so no stagnant water means we haven’t seen any mosquitos. That’s also what carves out these huge bowls. We could sit at any one of them for hours, one of the THREE reasons it took us 3 hours to do this 1h40m average hike. The second reason is that Savitri is recovering and the climbing up/down steps sections hurt and slow her down. The third.. and most impactful in this case.. you’ll read later.

Exploration leads to.. exploration. Savitri said “ohh dragonflies!” and I saw what she saw and tracked it until it landed. I find that insects and lizards are among animals that will freeze if you get close and you can actually get closer as long as you move very slowly and steadily straight toward them. This iridescent beauty turned out to be a damselfly. Minutes later.. I was tracking a bee and it landed briefly on this flower. It flew off and I saw that something remained.. lo and behold it’s a tiny spider and maybe the remnants of an ant trapped in its web. Plus.. flower!

Nothing to see here.. just hues of emerald and life fire wrapped in world glow.

In addition to the wildlife and pools along the Ribeira de Cortes running up the valley floor, the hills flanking them are intermittently farmed. The mix of wild and organically structured is beautiful.

Every once in a while we encountered ruins. Some are likely fairly new, but some are many hundreds of years old.

Meanwhile in a fantasy world nearby..

These guys looked up at us with genuine surprise like they hadn’t been disturbed in years. A waiter later told us these pools are full of locals in the heat of the summer.. mischievous goats.

300+ year old remnants of wool mills partially built then left to become pretty pictures.

The biggest, most visited pool in the area, Poco do Funil. Simply spectacular.

Ok we finally got our bodies and thoroughly mesmerized minds out of Poco do Funil. Having it all to ourselves was a special treat but we had a schedule to keep.

This time the goats were in the same fenced-in area with us. There are little signs telling you to close the makeshift gates behind you.

None of these pictures are enhanced or filtered in any way, but sometimes real-world colors just don’t seem believable.

Just about to cross the bridge and head back through Bouça to our car in Cortes do Meio and.. we met Mario. Mario is the nicest guy.. sweet and determined to talk with us. He seemed lonely and loved that the three of us could sort of communicate in mixed Portuguese-English-Spanish-French.

We talked for 20 minutes or so and realized we really had to go.. and he just kept going! Savitri managed to extricate herself as we walked across the bridge together, and she walked up and out of sight. He managed to stand in front of me (with the best of intentions I’m sure) and start to tackle some new topic.. something about young people (maybe his kids) being PhDs from/in? England.. I don’t know what we were talking about. I kept saying that I had to go and he literally put a hand on my shoulder and said/communicated “wait” and would type a mess into Apple or Google Translate. I didn’t know how to politely leave. Finally, as we slowly talk/walked up the hillside and crested the hill into Bouça, I walked beside him, thanked him, and he seemed to realize that Savitri had left long ago and I was had to go too. He smiled in defeat and shook my hand goodbye. It was a weird but culturally rewarding exchange.

I literally ran for ~10min to catch up with Savitri at that point.

Our rush to get back was a 2pm appointment for us both to get massages back at our hotel. The perfect match to what had grown into a 4 hour hike. We were a couple minutes late but as with everything at this hotel they were incredibly accommodating. We had relaxing hour-long massages with lots of oil then spent another half hour in the hotel sauna, Turkish bath, and heated pool. Again.. no complaints. It was a good day!

We then did some blogging and went to dinner at Taberna Laranjinha.

Top 3 without a doubt. As you can see by all the awards on the wall, they are widely acclaimed, including Michelin. That really doesn’t capture anything other than “they’re doing something right” for me though.

The second you enter and talk to the host, the hostess, the waitstaff.. you realize how passionate they all are about food and the whole experience.. despite being a warm, casual, local taberna.

Our 20-something waiters were very well versed on the food and region and enthusiastic about helping us. Savitri and I agreed that when they talked to us they were 100% focused on us, it was really special. This included recommending food that really spoke to them and matched our interests. They nailed it in every case.

The lamb shank, their most popular menu item, is presented bone-in then they offer to prepare it. Quickly but.. personally a waiter used these two spoons to remove the bone, cut the meat up into bite-sized pieces, and carefully rebuild the dish without the bone. It was like a little table show.

Our main waiter had offered to surprise us with all of our dishes but Savitri wasn’t ready for that plunge. After proving himself with all the dishes though, we agreed to just go with his recommendation for dessert. He delivered.. they delivered. This is a cooked apple at its core, but in a sabayon sauce, covered with nuts and plump raisins soaked in Aguardente de Zimbro, a strong local brandy. All of this served with a scoop of olive oil ice cream. If you ever have a chance, don’t question any of that, just get it. You won’t regret it.

They topped it off by serving Savitri both a small sample of Aguardente de Zimbro liqueur and a shot of the local Ginja (which they claim is better than what is found in the rest of Portugal, of course!). Savitri gave double thumbs up.

We finished the night sitting and talking with Vanessa, our hotel’s front desk clerk. She’s a lovely, educated, young woman who has given us tons of local guidance and Portugal insights.