grenelle2004

we are going to travel around by car in North West Spâin (Galicia) and north of Portugal (not sure exactly where but perhaps the Minho region and Porto). Does anyone have any experience and recommendations for these areas?
thanks

Viajero2

There about 500+ posts with experiences and recommendations for those areas. Have you browse any? What do you like? dislike? why are you going to NW Spain? when are you traveling? how many travelers? ages range? are you driving? are you taking the train? what is your daily budget for hotels? for how long are you going? do you prefer one or more home bases? would you rather stay in the countryside or cities?

Bottom line-- the better the input, the more meaningful the output....

NEDSIRELAND

In 'the Minho region,' La Guardia to be specific, be sure to visit the National Historic Site at Monte Santa Tecla. There's a Castrenho (Celtic) village there that dates back to the 4th Century AD.

You might want to stay at the Parador in Baiona: Castle of the Conde de Gondomar.

And in northern Portugal you should visit Guimaraes, birthplace of Modern Portugal, and Braga.

grenelle2004

Thanks for the info. We are having plenty of fun browsing all the guidebooks and the trip reports (thank you Viajero) but i have a couple of specific questions. We are actually driving around and camping so fairly free to move around. We prefer beautiful scenery and walking rather than churches and museums so we are just trying to target the best areas on that basis.

We are starting off really in Galicia. We thought we would drive the coast from A Courana to Mouros and then head back into Santiago for a night. We were intending to spend about 4 nights on the coast. Any recommendations for little villages, campsites, small walking circuits along that route would be great.

We are going to the Peneda Geres national park and then afterwards would like to go to the Douro area. We'll probably skip Porto itself but have seen great pictures of the river valley. We have read about the trains and boat trips but we wondered really which is the best stretch of the river/valley as we won't have time to do all of it. Afterwards we are going to drive south from there and pick up the road to Salamanca for a night there before driving back up to France.


thank you!

SonOfLusus

In Galicia THE destination is Santiago de Compostela. In Portugal's Minho (http://www.golisbon.com/portugal/cities/minho.html), I'd recommend Braga (http://www.golisbon.com/portugal/cities/braga.html), Guimaraes (http://www.golisbon.com/portugal/cities/guimaraes.html), and Viana do Castelo (http://www.golisbon.com/portugal/cit...docastelo.html). And yes, Porto (http://www.golisbon.com/portugal/cities/porto.html)is also the best choice in the north of Portugal.
A good accomodation choice is the Santa Marinha Pousada
(http://www.golisbon.com/pousadas/Pou...a-Marinha.html) in Guimaraes.