About Cascata de Monte Sete (Cascata de Sao Juliao)
Cascata de Monte Sete (also known as the Cascata de São Julião as well as Cascata do Monte Sete) is one of the more impressive waterfalls in the Alentejo Region of South-Central Portugal.
Situated in the Parque Natural da Serra de São Mamede in the Portalegre District of the region, it’s off the beaten path of most tourist itineraries, which tend to focus more on Lisbon, Porto, Sintra, and the Algarve.
Thus, this waterfall seemed to be delightfully lightly-visited while it also provided us an excuse to explore the medieval castles and villages dotting the Portugese-Spanish border (we happened to visit one such place in Marvão).
To our naked eyes, it seemed like the Cascata de Monte Sete was impressively tall, which we could appreciate in the initial parts of the descending trail.
However, as we got closer to the Río Xévora (the river responsible for this waterfall) along its upside-down trail, it seemed like we saw less of its overall drop thanks to the presence of so much vegetation cover during our early June 2024 visit.
Indeed, when we got to the base of the waterfall, it seemed to appear much shorter as the upper parts were hardly visible among the thick vegetation cover so we could only see the lowermost portion of its drop.
According to my Topo maps, the path of the Río Xévora descends roughly 40m.
However, I’ve seen estimates that its main drop could be as little as 10m, which seemed very pessimistic and discounting the taller upper parts that we noticed earlier on in the hike.
Nevertheless, this mountain area on the eastern frontier of Portugal is one of the few parts of the Alentejo Region that can actually get snow, and thus it’s said the waterfall can be enjoyed year-round.
Accessing the Cascata de Monte Sete
While I’ve seen trip reports that it’s possible to drive to the village of Monte Sete and then hike from the village down to the waterfall, we took a different approach advocated by signs in the vicinity.
From the trailhead in an open area atop a plateau (see directions below), we then descended a steep path along a well-defined trail leading down to a network of trail junctions around a picnic area.
This initial descent was roughly 250m long while losing about 40m in elevation.
The trail coming in from the opposite side was a shorter path that came from the village of Monte Sete, which I can’t describe in any more detail because we didn’t go that way.
So veering left to continue the descent, we’d eventually encounter steps leading down to a switchback roughly 130m from the earlier trail junction while catching glimpses of the upper drops or tiers of the Cascata de Monte Sete.
After the switchback, the trail then descended all the way to the banks of the Río Xévora (roughly 100m from the switchback) while revealing more of the upper tiers of the main waterfall along the way.
Once at the banks of the river, it was a little bit of a bedrock river scramble to try to improve the viewing experience of the Cascata de Monte Sete, but I really had to exercise caution given how slippery the rocks here were.
While at the base of the Monte Sete Waterfal, I couldn’t help but notice some kind of building or mill adjacent to the waterfall though I wasn’t sure what it was for.
There also appeared to be some faint trails climbing steeply above the building by the cascade, but they seemed too sketchy to pursue.
After having our fill of the Cascata de Monte Sete, we then backtracked the way we came.
The return hike was pretty much all uphill, which made the overall hiking distance on the order of about 1km with 70m elevation gain.
The entire hike took us about an hour at a leisurely pace.
Authorities
The Cascata de Monte Sete Waterfall is located near the town of Portalegre in Portalegre District of the Alentejo Region of Portugal. It appears that the waterfall is administered by the authorities and/or local landowners of the villages of Monte Sete or São Julião, or the town of Portalegre. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Alentejo Tourism website.
The Cascata de Monte Sete Waterfall resides just below the village of Monte Sete, which was about 5km from the town of São Julião and 14km east of the town of Portalegre.
So I’ll describe the driving directions as if we were coming from Portalegre.
The most straightforward way would be to drive northeast of the town of Portalegre along the N246-2 for about 6-7km or so before veering left to continue along the M522 Road.
Then, we’d follow the M522 Road for about another 7km to its junction with the M1044-2 Road.
At this point, we kept left to stay on the M522 Road, but then we turned right into a very easy-to-miss lane to the right (if we saw the Tasca da Cascata, we went too far).
We then ascended this narrow single-lane road for about 300m or so before the pavement stopped, and then we continued on the unpaved road for another 450m or so to an open clearing.
That clearing is where the trail to the Cascata de Monte Sete started.
Overall, this drive should take around 30 minutes or less (though GoogleMaps tends to think you can gun it on twisting mountain roads or narrow single-lane roads).
Note that the village of Monte Sete is about 300m south along the M1044-2 Road from the easy-to-miss turnoff for the open-air trailhead on the plateau for the Cascata de Monte Sete.
That said, it seemed like the confusing signage about the waterfall pointing away from the village made it seem like they discouraged visitors from using that town as trailhead parking for the waterfall or other trails.
For context, Portalegre is about 22km (about 30 minutes drive) south of Marvão, 103km (about 90 minutes drive) northeast of Évora, 184km (over 2 hours drive) south of Manteigas, about 227km (about 2.5 hours drive) northeast of Lisbon, and about 339km (about 3.5 hours drive) southwest of Salamanca, Spain.
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Checking out the falls and the walk part way down the steep descent showing Monte Sete as well as the upper part of the waterfall in addition to the trail context
Downstream to upstream with back and forth sweeping along both the stream and some weird wall structure beside it ending up at a view of the base of the falls where I wasn't comfortable scrambling any further up the slippery rocks
Left to right panoramic sweep from the start of the boardwalk part of the hike before zooming in and panning down the waterfall then gradually zooming back out for context again
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