About Frecha da Mizarela
Frecha da Mizarela is said to be one of the tallest waterfalls in the mainland of Portugal with estimates varying from 60m to 97m in cumulative height.
It’s situated in the Arouca Geopark (in mountains of Albergaria da Serra), where the park also encompasses the popular Passadiços do Paiva Trail.
Given its fairly close proximity to the city of Porto, it’s understandable that this place sees its share of visitors though it’s nowhere near as busy as the Passadiços do Paiva.
In any case, this waterfall seemed to present quite a few two-edged sword characteristics or challenges.
First, as you can see from the photos on this page, Frecha da Mizarela tends to have lighter flow, especially since our visit happened in mid-June 2024.
So I can totally see the waterfall not being very impressive (or not flowing at all) later in the Summer.
However, if you try to time your visit for when there’s likely to be higher water volume due to storms, then the waterfall’s position at higher elevation means it might be obscured by clouds under such conditions.
So the best timing in terms of waterflow would likely be after a clearing storm where there had been significant precipitation but with less fog or low clouds lingering around to block the view.
Another conflicting characteristic was that this waterfall faced west so it had the best lighting in the afternoon (assuming it was a sunny day).
Unfortunately when we made our visit on a sunny Saturday morning, we pretty much had to look against the sun, especially when we viewed it directly (more on this later).
At least Frecha da Mizarela was lightly visited during our excursion so we didn’t have to contend with crowds (which might be the case later in the afternoon).
Anyways, this waterfall features sweeping panoramic views in the Serra da Freita mountains as it felt quite like we were on top of the world.
To extend the experience, it was possible to take one of the strenuous upside-down trails descending deep into the gorge to reach the base of the waterfall, but that was something we didn’t do on our visit.
Experiencing Frecha da Mizarela
The easiest way to experience the Frecha da Mizarela was from the miradouro (lookout), which was pretty much next to the turnoff for the single-lane road down to the hamlet of Aldeia da Ribeira.
Depending on where you park (see directions below), this could be as little as an almost roadside excursion or as much as a 300m (600m round-trip) walk along the M621 Road.
There were trails that seemed to steeply descend beneath the lookout to get closer to the Frecha da Mizarela Waterfall, but we wound up deciding not to do it given the steepness of the terrain.
However, we did go another 250m downhill on that single-lane road for Aldeia da Ribeira towards a more direct cross-canyon view of the waterfall.
Unfortunately, from that position, we pretty much looked right into the sun at the waterfall, which didn’t make for great photos.
Nevertheless, from there, we noticed that there was another trail that appeared to descend to get closer to the base of the waterfall, but again, we didn’t pursue that either.
So overall, we wound up spending probably less than an hour around this scenic area encompassing both of the aforementioned views of the waterfall.
Certainly, we could have extended our visit to do the upside down hikes to get right up to the falls, or even go all the way to the end of the road to the hamlet of Aldeia da Ribeira.
But that will have to be for another time.
Authorities
The Frecha da Mizarela Waterfall is in the Arouca Geopark near the town of Arouca in the Aveiro District of Norte Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Arouca. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the Arouca Geosite website.
The Frecha da Mizarela Waterfall is located near the town of Arouca.
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 a similar distance to the Frecha da Mizarela.
Driving to Frecha da Mizarela 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 the exit 2 for the N227 towards Vale da Cambra/Arouca (after about 30km).
After remaining on the N227 Road for about 1km, we then turned left onto the N227-1 Road towards Carregosa.
Continuing on the N227-1 Road for about 9km, we then joined up with the M511 Road.
Then, we followed the M511 Road for almost 7km before keeping right at a junction with the M621 Road.
Finally, we followed the M621 Road for a little over 2km towards the turnoff for the single-lane road for Aldeia da Ribeira.
The miradouro for Frecha da Mizarela was just around the corner of this turnoff, but there’s no formal parking around this turnoff.
For parking that doesn’t get in the way of traffic, you can drive a little further for about 100m to a big pullout space on the right, or you can continue driving another 250-300m to the Hotel Rural da Freita at the hamlet of Mizarela.
That’s where there’s a handful of limited public parking spaces right off the road near both the hotel and a neighboring cafe/restaurant.
Overall, it took us a little under an hour to make this drive.
Driving to Frecha da Mizarela from Aveiro
From Aveiro, the most straightforward way would be to drive east on the A25 Motorway for about 17km to the A1 motorway towards Porto.
Then, we’d drive north on the A1 motorway for about another 12km to the exit 7 towards the N109/Ovar/Estarreja.
From there, we’d go through the toll collection station, and then drive we’d turn right onto the N224 Road, which we’d follow for the next 8km to the N1 Road.
Heading north on the N1 Road for a little over 2.5km, we then took the N224 ramp to continue on the N224 as it eventually became the A32 motorway after about 4km.
Once on the motorway, we’d then take the exit 2 towards N227/Vale da Cambra/N224/Arouca.
Then, we’d follow the remainder of this route just as described above (coming from Porto), where we’d follow the N227 to N227-1 to the M511, and then finally taking the M621 Road towards Frecha da Mizarela and the hamlet of Mizarela.
Overall, this drive should take about an hour.
For context, Arouca is about 69km (over an hour drive) northeast of Aveiro, about 64km (about an hour drive) southeast of Porto, about 116km (over 1.5 hours drive) north of Coimbra, about 112km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Braga, 112km (about 90 minutes drive northwest of Lamego, about 90km (under 2 hours drive) west of Ponte de Lima, 155km (over 2 hours drive) south of Gerês, and 308km (about 3.5 hours drive) north of Lisbon.
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360 degree sweep from the main lookout encompassing both the falls as well as the surrounding scenery
Nearly 360 degree sweep from a spot beneath the miradouro showing weird rock formations and the falls of course
Brief sweep from further down the road to Ribeira with a direct view of the falls against the morning sun
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