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.
Cascata do Arado is in Peneda-Gerês National Park near the towns of Ermida and Gerês (or Vila do Gerês).
I’ll describe the driving directions as if I was driving from Gerês since that was where we were staying when I made my visit to this waterfall.
So first, I’d head north on the N308-1 Road from the center of Gerês, which is an elongated, mountainous town bisected by the Rio Gerês with separated one-way streets going northbound and southbound in its center.
I’d continue going north along the N308-1 for about 2km to a multi-signed turnoff at a switchback to the right (one of the signs was for Cascata do Arado).
I then left the N308-1 Road and went on the narrower ascending mountain road (Rua da Pedra Bela) for almost the next 7km.
Eventually, this road junctions with the the Rua Vale do Castanheiro where there were some parking spots.
At this point, you have a choice of parking here and then walking north on the unpaved Rua da Cascata do Arado, or you can take the car on the Rua da Cascata do Arado (I did the latter).
So continuing another 700m on the Rua da Cascata do Arado, I found that the road was a bit rough and potholed, but as long as I took my time, the rental car didn’t bottom out.
Ultimately, I found some parking space near the bridge over the Rio Arado (I did show up late in the afternoon so there weren’t many cars around at the time).
Overall, this drive took me around 25-30 minutes.
For context, Gerês is about 43km (about an hour drive) northeast of Braga, 82km (about 90 minutes drive) east of Ponte de Lima, about 96km (over 90 minutes drive) northeast of Porto, 65km (over 90 minutes drive northwest of Mondim de Basto, about 213km (over 2.5 hours drive) north of Coimbra, and 406km (over 4.5 hours drive) north of Lisbon.
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Long video starting with the approach to the falls with partial views of its hidden upper tiers behind trees and then doing a 360 degree sweep from the official lookout as well as a zoom-in sweep of the falls itself
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