Portugal – Northern Tours Cycling Tour (2025)

This is considered an easy ride of a total of 228 km with total accent of 1817m and decent of 2683m. Tour goes specific Sundays starting March 22nd with the last date October 11th. Start your tour by being transfered from Porto to Castro Laboreiro which is inside the Peneda-Gerês National Park. The park is a lovely jumble of regenerating oak forests, plateaus, peat bogs, green valleys, and 300-million-year-old granite heights. The park has a few wolves that prowl the park, as do foxes, wild boars, ibex, and deer. Peneda Geres is also home to otters, fish, frogs, salamanders, 147 different bird species (many migratory) and 15 bat species—10 of which are endangered. You might also see Garrano wild ponies who are among the park’s most famous inhabitants. These wild animals have been native to the region since the Celtic era during the first millennium B.C.—but extensive domestication nearly wiped them out in the mid-20th century. The Portuguese government began to rebuild the herds in the 1940s in the area of what is now the national park. This part of the Iberian Peninsula has an ancient history of human habitation, as evidenced by megalithic stone tombs dating to the third century, Celtic fortifications dotting the hilltops, and a well-preserved first-century Roman road that crosses the park and remains popular with cyclists. Castles like Castro Laboreiro (tenth century) and Castelo do Lindoso (12th century), and monasteries like Santa Maria dos Pitões (ninth century) are enduring relics of medieval times. From the top of the hill you start to descend where you will visit Melgaço, Monção, Valença and Caminha…all at the Minho river – a natural frontier between Portugal and Spanish Region of Galiza. Along the river you’ll discover Portugal’s oldest border full of castles, forts and religious monuments all on one new cycle path. Leaving Caminha you start to cycle along the Atlantic coast and again with great cycle paths that follows the water, where you’ll still visit Viana do Castelo, Esposende and Vila do Conde before you return to Porto. An awesome mix of nature, history and landscapes!
For more information on this tour, please download the PDF. We offer many other interesting tours in Portugal. Let us know what interests you?

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