About Fisgas de Ermelo
Fisgas de Ermelo has to be one of the tallest waterfalls in Portugal, especially when you’re talking about the mainland.
Situated in Alvão Natural Park in the north of Portugal, the Rio Olo makes several disjoint drops over a cumulative height of a reported 200m.
Given the size of this waterfall, there were many ways to experience it, and we managed to do it in quite a few ways, which we’ll describe on this page.
Indeed, there were a handful of lookouts to witness various parts of this waterfall’s drop, but there were also swimming holes on the Rio Olo in and around the waterfall itself offering the chance to cool off.
While this waterfall can be considered a major natural attraction in Portugal, its remote location (the nearest town of any significant size was Mondim de Basto to the northwest) meant the place was delightfully uncrowded.
In fact, we actually had to earn our experiences with a bit of hiking, and this included a tricky (if the goal is not to get wet) river crossing.
So we’ll delve into exactly how we managed to explore this place to give you an idea of how it can be done with what I think is the minimal amount of effort to properly experience this place.
In summary, we hiked a total of 4.6km (which was really comprised of different excursions in and around the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall), and we spent about 4 hours cumulatively away from the car.
The Fisgas de Ermelo Viewpoint
The first way we experienced the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall was for the Miradouro das Fisgas de Ermelo.
Although there was a road that goes right to the viewpoint area, I had to hike to that viewpoint due to the road being closed to vehicles.
Therefore, I started the hike from some parking spaces around the Capelinha do Fojo or before the Centro Interpretativo Fisgas de Ermelo.
From there, I then walked the mostly gentle 1km distance to a switchback or bend in the road.
That was where there were what appeared to be parking spaces, some porta-potties, and an interpretive sign as well as a scrambling area for a more edge-of-the-world view of the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall.
At this vantage point, I was able to get a partial view of some of the lower drops of the Rio Olo.
Meanwhile, this part of the waterfall carved into the quartzite cliffs (almost like the countertops you might encounter in a kitchen or bathroom remodel).
However, these “countertops” had a bit of a slanted angle, which made me wonder what kind of geologic processes that took place to make the land tilt that much.
Unfortunately, this was the extent of experiencing the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall in this manner because I wasn’t able to get any closer into the gorge for a more intimate experience.
That said, just this teasing taste of the waterfall certainly whetted the appetite to see what else this Portugese giant had in store.
After having my fill of this spot, I returned back the way I came though I did see some people continue to hike up the road switchback and make their way towards other viewpoints like the Canhão das Fisgas and Cancela do Miradouro.
The Pioca de Cimas Swimming Hole
The next two ways of experiencing the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall can be combined into a single extended excursion.
However, if you don’t really care about exerting more effort for more photo ops of the waterfalls, then visiting the swimming holes of the so-called Pioca de Cimas might be the way to interact with the Rio Olo.
Starting from the Tatouça Trailhead (see directions below), we hiked downhill roughly 350m to a cutoff trail veering further downhill to the left.
During this wide open initial stretch of the hike, we were able to witness the town of Mondim de Basto in the distance while also noticing the Santuário da Senhora da Graça atop one of the neighboring hills.
Upon descending the cutoff trail for another 125m, we encountered a series of trail forks.
By the way, you can also not take this cutoff and head towards the Cancela do Miradouro lookout before cutting back, but that would significantly extend the hike by another 500m.
Anyways, at this trail junction, we had the option of keeping to the right, which would descend right towards the Pioca de Cimas.
Unfortunately, in order to access the pools from that side, you’d have to do a rather daring rock scramble down to the Rio Olo, and then you’d have to find a way to wade across the river at or around some of the tiers of Fisgas de Ermelo.
Indeed, it was a bit sketchy so we opted to keep to the left of the fork and head down towards the Rio Olo that way.
Now during our visit, we did notice a lot of people taking the sketchier path on the right, but I don’t think any of them (or not many at least) were able to access the Pioca de Cima from there.
So as we continued to descend on the left fork path for another 350m, we noticed that there was an informal scrambling path leading right down to the Rio Olo and an apparent crossing of it.
However, we ultimately opted to keep going straight for another 200m more before the trail bottomed out right at a ford of the Rio Olo (where the other side was a road that was coming from the village of Varzigueto).
It didn’t seem like it was possible to cross this creek without getting the feet wet so we eventually went right and followed the bouldery riverbed for yet another 200m before reaching the river crossing that we witnessed earlier on.
At that point, we then crossed the Rio Olo (trekking poles and hiking boots helped me to keep my feet dry, but both Julie and Tahia got their feet wet).
Once upon the other side of the river, we then went another 250m to the ourcrops overlooking the Piocas de Cima.
There were mild scrambling paths descending from the outcrops to the fringes of the plunge pools of the upper tiers of the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall.
It was from this perspective that I saw how sketchy the scramble from the other side of the river to access the pools were, and I personally wouldn’t recommend accessing the Piocas de Cima that way.
In any case, I noticed that most people opted to choose to stay at the pools to swim, sunbathe, or just have a smoke or something.
Overall, if we turned back to the car after experiencing the Piocas de Cima, then I’d say the overall distance here would be around 2.4km round-trip involving some mild elevation loss/gain of a little over 100m.
That said, the Piocas de Cima were reasonably close to the best views of the Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall that I felt it was worth the added effort to properly experience perhaps the best waterfall on the Portugese mainland.
The Alto da Cabeça Grande Viewpoint
While the Piocas de Cima swimming hole would be the destination for many people experiencing the Fisgas de Ermelo, I think the best view of the waterfall comes from the Miradouro de Alto da Cabeça Grande.
It’s not even that much of an extension to the hike from the Piocas de Cima so it was a no-brainer for me to continue with the hike from there to this viewpoint.
So from the Piocas de Cima, I backtracked to the main PR3 trail and continued along it for around 300m before I noticed some signage and spur trails leading back towards the Rio Olo.
Thus, I followed these paths for another 50m or so before I reached a lookout with rope railings yielding a profile view of the main drops of the Fisgas de Ermelo Viewpoint.
After having my fill of this spot, I then followed along the rope railings in the downstream direction for another 250m before I reached the Alto da Cabeça Grande Lookout.
This lookout had additional rope railings as well as an interpretive sign singing the praises of Alvão Nature Park.
As far as I was concerned, this should be the turnaround point of the hike because I found that the sanctioned trail didn’t yield any better views than this one.
So if this was the turnaround point, then the total hiking distance from the Tatouça Trailhead to the Alto da Cabeça Grande and back would be on the order of 3.6km round-trip (maybe 4km if you add all the scrambling and route-finding).
When we did this hike, I would say that we probably spent around 2-3 hours away from the car, but this doesn’t count the time I spent doing the solo out-and-back walk to the Miradouro de Fisgas de Ermelo (i.e. the first section of this write-up).
Other Options
I actually did some additional 425m of hiking as I explored the PR3 trail further downstream of the Alto da Cabeça Grande Viewpoint.
And as I did this, I noticed some other things worth mentioning about this hike and some of the other benefits of extending this hike even more.
First, I saw lots of people sweating big time as they did a predominantly uphill hike from the village of Ermelo to the Alto da Cabeça Grande Viewpoint.
The village of Ermelo can be the starting and endpoint of an 8km loop hike that would not only take in all the benefits of how we experienced the Fisgas de Ermelo, but they’d also take in the Piocas de Baixo swimming hole.
I also saw that there seemed to be a lower trail descending from the Panoramica das Fisgas de Ermelo viewpoint, but I’m not sure if the authorities have sanctioned that trail or not.
It certainly didn’t look like there was any signage nor any infrastructure suggesting that you can and should do those trails down there.
Finally, you may see in the literature (primarily private blogs and/or TripAdvisor reviews) showing some swimming holes backed by two or three impressive tiers of the Fisgas de Ermelo.
Well, it turns out that there’s a direct scrambling path from somewhere between the Alto da Cabeça Grande Viewpoint and the spot with the rope fencing offering a profile view of the waterfall.
I suspect that the authorities put up the rope fencing in order to obscure and discourage doing the steep scramble down to the pools beneath the main tiers of the Fisgas de Ermelo.
So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a case of an unsanctioned way to experience the Fisgas de Ermelo, and it should be treated as a risky excursion that should not be attempted unless you’re comfortable with the risks.
That said, I’m not sure if there’s an authority figure catching someone doing this and fining the perpetrators, but you never know about things like this, especially if barricades have been erected to prevent such maneuvers by the public.
Authorities
The Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall is in the Alvão Natural Park near the town of Mondim de Basto in the Vila Real District of the Norte Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Mondim de Basto. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Mondim de Basto website.
The Fisgas de Ermelo Waterfall resides in the Alvão Natural Park near the town of Mondim de Basto.
However, since we made our visit from the Douro Valley (particularly the town of Lamego), I’ll describe how we did the drive from there.
From Lamego, we drove the A24 motorway north across the Douro River and Douro Valley for about 28km before heading west on the A4 motorway.
Eventually, after about 14km, we took the exit 20 towards the N15 and then N304 Road near Viariz da Santa.
At that point, we followed the N304 Road for about 20km eventually getting to a signed turnoff for the Fisgas de Ermelo Road on the right just after the road bridge spanning the Rio Olo.
Then, we followed the narrow road for another 3km or so to the hamlet of Fojo and the Capelinha do Fojo, where there were parking spaces.
This would be the parking area to pursue the Miradouro das Fisgas de Ermelo, especially if its access road was closed (like it was during our mid-June 2024 visit).
Overall, this drive took us a little over an hour.
For the next part of the excursion, we continued to drive from Fojo further to the east past the Centro Interpretativo Fisgas de Ermelo (and turnoff for the miradouro) towards the M1206 Road after about 2.7km.
Turning right to go south on the M1206 Road, we then drove another kilometer to a signed turnoff for a parking space at a clearing.
This space is the so-called Tatouça Trailhead, and this was where we started hiking to both the Piocas de Cima and the Alto da Cabeça Grande viewpoint.
This part of the drive only took us about 10 minutes.
Finally, note that if we continued driving along the N304 Road for another 15km, we’d arrive at the town of Mondim de Basto.
This final stretch of the drive should take around 30 minutes or so.
For context, Mondim de Basto is about 36km (under an hour drive) northwest of Vila Real, 99km (about 90 minutes drive) northwest of Lamego, about 85km (over an hour drive) northeast of Porto, about 195km (over 2 hours drive) northeast of Coimbra, 67km (about 90 minutes drive south of Gerês, and 387km (about 4 hours drive) north of Lisbon.
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Brief 360 degree sweep from out on the miradouro of one of the lowermost tiers of the waterfall
Back and forth left to right and back sweep of the upper two most tiers of the waterfall at Piocas de Cima from atop a bluff
Back and forth sweep showing a partial profile of most of the tiers of the falls as seen along the PR3 Trail
Back and forth sweep as seen from the Alta da Cabeca Grande, which was perhaps the best lookout of the falls
Upstream to downstream and back sweep of the Piocas de Cima showing part of one of the tiers of the falls as well as looking downstream at more intermediate smaller tiers
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