Geres - Quinta da Tomadinha (in English)

This post is outdated, but necessary nonetheless. On the 11th of August we drove up to Gerês, where we stayed for a few days at Quinta da Tapadinha, an amazing place near Barragem da Caniçada, just over half an hour from Braga. With us were also Monique, Carl, Cormac and Glenda, my "UK foster family", and because of them this post is in English. May our PT readers bear with me for a post, PT based posts will resume shortly!

The house was great (150 euros a night - not expensive either!), holds 7 to 8 people easily, with 3 main double rooms + 1 "mezzanine", with spacious inner areas and really nice outside areas, including a great tank of cold water which we could use as a pool to refresh ourselves - the weather was hot! Great fun was had in said tank, as one might imagine...

We visited the region around the house, which has the particularity that distances take 5 times more to drive than elsewhere! So it's about half an hour for each 5 km!!! Steep and wiggly roads explain the phenomena... As one can tell, Cormac and Filipe got along just fine

despite Filipe's current inability to share things easily...! The boys enjoyed hunting around for bugs of all kinds, including lizards (here a male and female of Lacerta shreibeiri)

One of the nicest places we went to was Portela do Homem, where some of you, more fond of the Abyss, have also jumped before into:

Despite the fact this might look dangerous, it was really not that much so... but don't let kids alone for a sec though!!!

We visited the "Convento de Santa Maria de Bouro", were we took probably the only "full shebang" photo: (we actually went there for lunch later in the week)

That evening we went to the "Festa de S. Bento da Porta Aberta" - the kids were sleeping by then!

Note that, despite what the pictures might lead you to believe, no child was given alcohol during this holidays:

But one cannot say the same about the adults...

Another great place we visited was "Cascata da Fonte do Arado", were just 100 m below the waterfall the roman bridge provided the shelter from the Sun to make it bearable. The water was really cold, which felt great...

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and as the milk run out of the bottles, we had to return

But it was great to, once more, be with the "kiwis"... thanks for coming to PT and making our lives more exciting and fun. May you return next year, then with a larger family, with a "Rita" among you guys!