2026 – Europe – Week 3 – Extreme Peakbagging in Portugal
Just a few hours north of our camping spot, we spotted a peak—Gardunha (1227m) —with 770 meters of prominence. And two more hours beyond that, an even more prominent one: Torre (1993m), with over 1,000 meters of prominence. Both were close enough that we could realistically go for them.
They were both summited… by car. Yep, that’s peakbagging in Portugal for you—we can reach highly prominent mountains just by driving up. Hell, why not? I’ll take it!
By the way, the drives to these prominent peaks are awesome. But if you happen to pass through the villages on the way, you can easily get stuck on those super narrow, twisty roads—and never get out. So watch out. Don’t take these “easy” peakbagging expeditions for granted. Their cruxes are of a very different kind.
Starting our drive towards Gardunha (1227m)
Further up the roads gets progressively more interestingAnd this is the summit of GardunhaProof I was here too 😏From the summit we could see Torre, 1993m. It is the highest peak in Portugal mainland, with a prominence of 1201 metres. And clearly it has snow! Now we really had to go there. We are Canadians after all and at times, suffer severe snow withdrawal syndrome.Since driving up Gardunha did not use too much of calories we were happy to explore the ridgeIt was super fun to navigate through. Chester stayed behind to fly the drone whereas I made an objective to make it to the next summit visible at the end of the ridge. It was further than expected.
Spring is here too!And I am enjoying it!
As I got closer to my destination I got concerned that huge boulders will stand on my way to the summit. But then I come across this.
I am enjoying the summit – this was by far my favourite so far!I found this below the summitNow I had to go back the same way! But this trip was far from boring.On the way back I found the actual trail!
Our next destination of the day was Torre, the highest peak of Portugal on the mainlandSure enough there were impressive snow drifts close to the topView of the summit with three towersLooking in the other direction is a little storeAnd in another direction just the landscapeWe got some special sheep cheese from the summit. It is supposed to make you more adventurous. We will see…We got to the middle of Portugal and it’s time to head south. Otherwise we could miss the wedding of our friends Sonia and Jonas.As we drive south Chester finds a mine. They closed it and converted it to a touristic attraction. We sure enjoyed itWe also saw a lot of theseStorks – everywhere. I have never in my life seen so many storks! Chester even heard them clapping their beaks!None of them were delivering babies though 🦅 What’s wrong with them? Polish storks carry babies all the time.After the day of driving we almost reached Lagos, our final destination. But before that we stopped at two more prominent peaks. We drove of course- this is Portugal after all. This is Picota, and far in the distance Fóia.And this is my shadow on Fóia.Far in the distance are finally the promised beaches. We will enjoy them soonFor now this is our wonderful camping spot.
Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures 