Penzeda-Gerês National Park

 I teamed up with two polish hostelmates to get up 6 am to catch the bus to Peneda-Gerês National Park the only national park in Portugal (due to the last dictator believed one/unity was enough). To our surprise, there was no gate or information booth to get hiking info (I googled the night before but too many trails to decide). We tried to follow a trail and saw a white horse but realized that trail will not lead to exciting views. 

My polish friends are masters of hitchhiking, so we got 1st ride from the trail back to town tourist info office, then tried to hike to another trail. We ran into an local hiker who shared in-depth info of the trails so we tried to hitchhike again to the sites that were too fat to hike to. The local hiker tried to explain for us a Portugal tourist who has a car and was willing to ride us. Then the Lady Luck touched us again that the local hiker become the Portugal tourist and our tour guide via the morning ride about 2-hrs. 

We saw the highlights of the park without much walking and back to Braga around 2 pm. My polish friends continued touring Braga and I went back to hostel to take a nap. My polish friends already left Braga yet reached me via our hostel and WhatsApp. They are more spontaneous and mobile than me.

I had kabobs beef (5€) for dinner, then walked around Braga last time, before I came back to hostel to taste yougart, local beer, and the famous Portugal sardines can (I actually like it and will get more in Porto). After seeing so many colorfully decorated sardines speciality stores in different Portugal cities with many different flavors, including curry, etc.

“sardines became a big deal due to Saint Anthony, Lisbon’s patron saint.  During one of his expeditions, he was having trouble converting the people, so he turned to the fish. Legend says that the fish listened to his sermon and he took it as a sign of God.”