Passadiços do Mondego, Guarda, Portugal

I had the perfect opportunity to do this linear trail on my last vacation. And it just happened to be the day after my birthday. Although my last vacation was one of the loneliest I've ever had, because I ended up celebrating my birthday alone, it was one of the ones I enjoyed the most, enjoying the beauty of nature and the surroundings without looking at the clock.

I had already planned to do this route because some of my friends who had already done it had advised me to.

First of all, you have to book your visit, as it's an approximately 12-kilometer route that takes you over footbridges, suspension bridges and roads that follow the meandering and chirping of the River Mondego. Of unique beauty, this trail is part of the Serra da Estrela Natural Park and the World Geopark UNESCO .

Paths flanked by fantastic fauna, including alder, ash, willow, chestnut, oak, strawberry, elder, broom and heather... simply unique and fantastic self-conceived flora of this mountainous region.

Of the animals that can be seen, I only managed to photograph a frog, which I found when I approached one of the many streams of clean, fresh water!

The presence of levadas also reminded me a little of the island of Madeira. I don't know if any of you have ever had the opportunity to visit Madeira and walk along one of the hundreds of levadas (paths that follow the watercourses and were built by man to take water to the most remote parts of the island).

I started the route at the Caldeirão Dam, passing through Pêro Soares, Mizarela (with its well-known medieval bridge), Vila Soeiro, Trinta, and Videmonte. As I managed to do this route of approximately 12 km and 600 meters of accumulated gradient in just over 2 and a half hours, I still had time to do it straight back!!! That's because I left the Caldeirão Dam at 10.20 and arrived in Videmonte at 14.50. As the route ended at 5pm, I couldn't stay halfway... And as I didn't want to pay for a taxi to take me from Videmonte back to where I'd parked my car (Caldeirão Dam), I decided to get going and managed to complete the return journey in less than 2 hours! At the end of the day I felt full of energy, and it was certainly one of the best days I've spent alone, in the middle of nature, breathing the purest air there is, and taking pictures! What more could you ask for?

If you want to find out more about this beautiful route, you can check out this website, which is also the site where you can book and pay for entrance tickets. And guess what the entrance fee costs? Just ONE EURO!

What more could you ask for? NOTHING!

https://www.passadicosdomondego.pt/

^{Photocollage made with Canva}

I'm sharing here a video from Youtube, made and published by Hugo MT, to give you an idea of the beauty that I couldn't capture with my humble phone camera. Check out the other videos from this author... Amazing!