Hi,
Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day – and we availed ourselves of it. Our plan was to drive to the top of a mountain called ‘Torre’ and check off ‘visiting the highest mountain peak in mainland Portugal’ (89CP+QR Covilhã, Portugal). We were expecting spectacular views – and we were not disappointed. But what we weren’t expecting were all the jaw-droppingly beautiful views on the route up there. In this case, the destination was tied for first with the journey. And I am not complaining about that!
According to Google Maps, it should have taken us ~2 hours to drive to the mountain. We planned for an extra hour because I do not drive fast on mountain roads, and the dogs need to stop for breaks along the way. Even so, we arrived after our estimated time due to the beautiful scenery along the way. I cannot remember how many times we pulled over, got out, and enjoyed the views. But I can assure you that if you think ‘Thirteen times’, I can positively tell you ‘Guess higher’.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but they also say, ‘you had to be there’. I think the photos below are lovely, but honestly, they don’t do the scenery justice. Still, for camera-phone photos, they do a passable job. More can be found in the website’s Gallery under Country Sites, alphabetically by ‘Serra da Estrela’.
Getting back to speaking of ‘higher’, I am going to lay some numbers on you. The mountain, Alto da Torre, reaches 1,993 meters (6,539 feet). Quite high, right? That is in excess of 1.2 miles. Yet the air seemed fine. Isn’t the air supposed to be thinner at that height? I’m glad it wasn’t. I didn’t have any trouble breathing, neither did Chris or the dogs. I did have a spell of low blood pressure, but that doesn’t count, does it? Anyway….
At the top of Alto da Torre there were a couple of souvenir shops, a deli, and a restaurant. There was also a ski lift up there, because Torre is the only place in mainland Portugal that consistently gets snow, so of course, there has to be a ski slope and a ski lift. It was ~80 degrees when we got there, so the ski lift wasn’t running. But maybe we can come back in January to see the winter wonderland. Don’t fret, we did actually see some snow…just not a lot of it. Chris spotted a white spot about 50-60 feet down the side of the mountain top, and he and the girls went down to investigate. Opal was surprised to see the snow, and danced around a little, stomping all over the cold white goodness. Onyx was less-than impressed. You can enjoy watching their reactions on this video.
Of course, once we had made it to the top of the mountain, we had to come back down. We took a different route home, stopping in Fajão to visit the Geoscope – observatório astronómico de Fajão (43XF+Q6, Fajão, Portugal). We had been looking at the geoscope when we were thinking about filming the lunar eclipse at a dark sky monument. We didn’t, we went to Montemor-o-Velho, so we thought we would stop by and see what the site had to offer…just in case there is another eclipse anytime soon. Of course, we arrived in the daylight, but it still looked like a great spot. It is not a high as Torre, but it is in the middle of nowhere, so the night sky should be awesome. More found in the Gallery under Country Sites, alphabetically by ‘Fajão’.
And that was mostly the end of our day. We still had to do some grocery shopping and drive home, but that was on Chris and me. The dogs slept.
Nola