About Cascata da Cabreia
Cascata da Cabreia is a quaint waterfall within a forested setting within the Sever do Vouga Municipality near the town of Silva Escura (or “dark silver”).
The waterfall was where the Rio Mau (or Rio Bom) dropped a reported 25m as it tumbled and flowed between some mills that are no longer in use.
Interestingly, I noticed the name change in the river from Rio Bom to Rio Mau on my Gaia GPS app, and it made me curious as to why the river went from “good” (bom) to “bad” (mau).
Apparently, it was said that the Cascata da Cabreia waterfall was where the river was essentially called “bad” by a parish priest from the town of Silva Escura in 1732.
Perhaps he was influenced by stories of how the Rio Bom became Rio Mau due to accidents that happened to people working the water mills (of which we saw some by the waterfall itself).
Yet the waters of the Rio Mau were also used in irrigation as well as the Braçal Mining Complex, which was said to be Portugal’s first mining concession (and perhaps why the neighboring town was called Silva Escura).
In any case, accessing this waterfall felt more like a family-friendly excursion than a hike because we only walked about 250-300m from the nearest trailhead to get to the waterfall.
Along the way, there were lots of picnic tables situated in flattened out terraces as the trail made a moderately steep descent down to the Rio Mau.
Then, the trail went briefly upstream towards the Cascata da Cabreia while passing by an intermediate waterfall from a tributary feeding the river beneath a bridge off to the right.
I didn’t spend extra time to explore where the other trails deviating away from the waterfall went so I can’t comment more on those paths.
However, just being in front of the Cascata da Cabreia and its neighboring mills made for a satisfying experience.
Inside some of the mills, I could see grinding stones as apparently the power of the river had been used to grind millet or flour.
Overall, we spent about 50 minutes away from the car, encompassing the roughly 300m walk (600m round-trip) and the time spent lingering around the mills and the waterfall.
Authorities
The Cascata da Cabreia is near the town of Silva Escura in Sever do Vouga Municipality of the Aveiro District of the Norte Region of Portugal. It’s not clear to me who administers the waterfall, but it seems like the authorities of Sever do Vouga have a big role in it. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Sever do Vouga website.
The Cascata da Cabreia is located near the town of Silva Escura.
However, since we came here from the city of Porto, I’ll describe the driving route that we took from there.
I’ll also describe the driving route from Aveiro since that was a well-touristed town that was closer to the Cascata da Cabreia.
Driving to Cascata da Cabreia from Porto
From public car park by the Douro River just west of the Ribeira District in Porto, we drove east along the Douro River.
This road on the north side of the Rio Douro eventually went onto Avenida Gustavo Eiffel/Avenida de Paiva Couceiro, and after about 3km, it went to the roundabout by the N108 Road.
We then took the second exit to go northwest as we followed the N108 Road to the ramp for the southbound A20 Motorway.
Then, we followed the A20 south for about 8km before taking the A32 Motorway to its end (after about 33km).
Beyond the end of the motorway, we then took the N224 Road towards Vale do Caima (for another 7km) before taking the N328 Road south.
From there, we then followed the N328 Road for over 9km or so into the town of Dornelas, where the N328 Road became the IC35 Road, and then we turned right onto the Rua 30 de Junho.
At that point, the road became the CM1480, which we followed for about 4km towards the EM554-1 Road in the town of Silva Escura.
By this time, we started to see signs for the Cascata da Cabreia, and we pretty much followed the M554-1 Road east from a roundabout (on Rua da Pereira/Rua Principal) for about 200m.
Then, we turned right onto the Rua Remolha, which was a one-way road for the final 600-700m or so to a turnoff on our left leading down to a dead-end, where we managed to park for the Cascata da Cabreia.
At this trailhead, it looked like there was room for maybe 3 or 4 cars, depending on how they are parked.
Note that due to the one-way nature of the Rua Remolha, if we had missed this turnoff, then we’d have to drive another 300m to the Rua da Costa Má, where we’d turn right and then go another 220m to the Rua da Bouça/M554-1.
At that point, we’d turn right and follow the M554-1 Road back to the Rua Remolha entrance in another 600m or so to circle back to the trailhead of Cascata da Cabreia again.
Overall, it took us about 70 minutes to make this drive.
Driving to Cascata da Cabreia from Aveiro
From Aveiro, the most straightforward way would be to drive east on the A25 Motorway for about 35km to the exit for the N328 Road towards Paradela.
Then, we’d drive north on the N328 Road for about 12km (going through Sever do Vouga along the way) before getting onto the M554-1 Road.
From there, we’d drive about 2.4km or so to the one-way Rua Remolha on our left, and then, we’d take the remaining 600-700m on this single-lane road before the aforementioned turnoff to the car park for the Cascata da Cabreia.
Overall, this drive should take under an hour (though it wound up taking us about 45 minutes).
For context, Silva Escura is about 51km (under an hour drive) northeast of Aveiro, about 68km (about an hour drive) southeast of Porto, about 92km (about 1.5 hours drive) north of Coimbra, about 116km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Braga, 108km (about 90 minutes drive) northwest of Lamego, about 145km (under 2 hours drive) south of Ponte de Lima, 159km (about 2.5 hours drive) southwest of Gerês, and 284km (over 3 hours drive) north of Lisbon.
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Downstream to upstream sweep checking out an intermediate waterfall before going further upstream onto the bridge to check out a tree-obstructed view of the main falls
Downstream to upstream sweep and then panning up to down of the main falls from a little beyond the near side of the nearest footbridge
Starting from the top of a mill then descending to go into it before descending further to get a more direct bottoms up look at the main falls
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