The beauty of this country continues to amaze us. There is a great variety of places to visit and things to do – and nothing is far. Last week we took a 3-night trip with friends to see the Parque Naturale da Serra da Estrela. This is a large mountain park less than a three-hour drive from our home.  It is the highest mountain range in continental Portugal with a peak at 1993 meters (6538 feet.) We spent two full days driving the park roads and saw less than half of the 101,000 hectares (roughly 250,000 acres.) We absolutely loved it! The roads are good and we had them almost to ourselves. Around each bend in the road we found a new and different landscape. There are rolling  hills of golden grass, fields of giant boulders, heavily wooded areas, a 13-kilometer long glacial valley, a windy peak, and so much more.  Heaven for hikers. Below are just some of the hundreds of photos I took. It was hard to believe we saw all of these varied vistas in one park. The park is most popular in the winter as one of the few places in Portugal that gets snow and has skiing. But, I can’t imagine it being better than like this in the fall.

The other highlight of the trip was the agri-tourism quinta where we stayed the three nights. The host, Élio, was such a delight. He spoke no English, but graciously and patiently allowed us to practice our Portuguese on him. One night we stayed up to 2:00 in the morning sharing wine and laughing with him. His sister, Gina, made us fabulous home cooked meals two nights including her tasty bread baked in the outdoor wood-fired oven. It was a delightful trip and we will definitely be going back sometime to see more.