About Cascata do Arado
Cascata do Arado is one of the more well-known waterfalls in Portugal, especially when you consider how easy it was to access it.
I figured that this notoriety was warranted because I first became aware of this place when consulting a Lonely Planet Portugal book during my pre-trip research (so I jokingly called it the “LP Waterfall”).

In any case, visiting this waterfall was pretty straightforward as it involved going up a roughly 150-200m path that began just past a road bridge over the Arado River.
At the end of the walk was a lookout with a direct view of the Cascata do Arado, but the lookout area was surrounded by railings and fencing to ensure this was a look-but-don’t-touch waterfall.
Indeed, it seemed like the authorities went through a lot of trouble putting in these railings such that they extended well before the miradouro.
Thus, it seemed that swimming at the waterfall was not sanctioned (despite what has been said in the past literature about bouldering up to the falls for a swim).

So aside from taking pictures of the waterfall from the miradouro, there wasn’t much here to extend my visit.
Thus, I only spent about 30 minutes away from the car in a very leisurely manner after parking at a pullout spot pretty close to the bridge over the Rio Arado (see directions below).
That said, the road to get to that spot was unpaved and quite full of potholes so if you’re a bit queasy about driving your vehicle on that kind of road, then you can walk the unpaved stretch.
So if you were to walk instead of driving the pothole-riddled unpaved road, that would increase the overall hiking distance to about 1.4km round-trip (700m each way) instead of the minimal 300-400m or so from where I started.
Authorities
Cascata do Arado is located in Peneda-Gerês National Park near the village of Gerês in the Braga District of the Norte Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests Municipality. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Natural.pt website.
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