Portugal's Top

There’s something very inspiring about standing on the very top of Portugal. Torre, in Serra da Estrela, is the highest point in the land, if you don’t count the volcanic Mount Pico which rises straight up out of the sea on the island of Pico in the Azores.

Portugal’s generally not known as a land of mountains, ice and snow,  but up at 1,993m enough falls in the winter to warrant a couple of ski resorts, and in the height of the August summer, it’s still chilly enough with a fair wind blowing across a bare landscape of granite outcrops. I read somewhere that the reason it's called "Torre" (tower) is because King João in the early 19th Century had a tower built to bring it's height up to 2,000m. I'd need to verify that. Sounds a bit like "The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain"!

Any sense of achievement we might have had in reaching Portugal’s highest point has to be offset against the realisation that we drove all the way up, rather than climbed, along with a hundred other visitors! Sorry, no walking boots this time!