April 6, 2023
We based in Arouca for two nights so that we could leave all of our “stuff” behind for a day while doing some hiking. Arouca is a beautiful town of around 20,000 people in a valley, surrounded by hills mostly covered in pines. As usual, we took the “back road” into Arouca, and the twisty, lightly-traveled road itself made for a beautiful and fun introduction to Arouca. Time Magazine called Arouca “One of the World’s Greatest Places” in 2021. The town has a nice, relaxing feel to it, although to be fair we were there before tourist season starts, which I’m sure creates a whole different level of chaos.
Besides the town itself, there are two main attractions in the area: The first is the Arouca Geopark, which has a 5.1 mile long mostly elevated, plank-covered walkway along the Paiva River. Called the Passadiços de Paiva, the walkway includes a climb of over five hundred steps up (and then down again).
These stairs (over 500 of them) are at the south end of the walkway. Once you’ve climbed them, it’s pretty much all downhill for the next four and a half miles, following the Paiva River.
The downhill side of the steps.
The Paiva River is a popular rafting and kayaking spot.
Once you reach the end of the five mile walk, there are taxis and shuttle vehicles that will take you back to the start.
Within the Arouca Geopark is the second and newest attraction, called 516 Arouca. The “516” refers to 516 meters (1693 feet), the length of the bridge, which when it opened in April 2021 was the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world.
The bridge is 175 meters, or 574 feet, above the Paiva River.
Yep. Crossed it. Yep, it bounces when people walk on it.
In the US, if you built a multi-million dollar bridge as a tourist attraction, you’d build a Disney-like theme park in front of it, with rides, souvenir shops, restaurants, maybe a big parking lot with a tram that takes you to the front gate… Here, it’s a twenty minute walk down this 1.5 meter wide, mostly unmarked stone and dirt path to get to the bridge. Once you’re there, it’s just the bridge; no souvenir t-shirts, no “516” souvenir $20 plastic cups with watered down soft drinks. In fact, there are only restrooms on one end of the bridge. It may be a tourist attraction, but it’s surrounded by authenticity.
We enjoyed our relaxing stay in Arouca, and we again took the back way out of Arouca towards our next destination: The Douro Valley.