The international Douro, a border at the bottom of the canyon

A road along the canyon rim

Here the Douro has nothing of the terraced vineyards of the Upper Douro, further downstream. It runs at the bottom of a canyon several hundred metres deep, and that canyon is the border: Portugal on the right bank, Spain on the left. The road mostly follows the plateau, and short side roads lead to the viewpoints above the river. Griffon and Egyptian vultures, golden eagles and black storks fly over the drop.

The journey starts in Bragança, the town that gave its name to the Braganza dynasty, which ruled Portugal from 1640 to 1910. Its citadel is still lived in. Behind the walls you also find the Domus Municipalis, a Romanesque building raised over a cistern, and the Iberian Mask Museum.

Further south-east, Miranda do Douro sits on the edge of the canyon. People there still speak Mirandese, an Astur-Leonese language recognised by law in 1999. Below the town, near the dam, a boat runs up the narrowest part of the canyon, between sheer rock walls.

In the mid-20th century a chain of dams — Miranda, Picote, Bemposta, Aldeadávila, Saucelle — turned the river into a series of reservoirs. A 1927 agreement shared out the river’s power: the upper stretch to Portugal, the lower to Spain.

The border follows the water, and you sometimes pass from one country to the other across the crest of a dam. Fixed for the most part in 1297 by the Treaty of Alcañices, this border ranks among the oldest in the world still in force.

The Côa engravings

In the 1990s a dam was set to flood the valley of the Côa, a tributary of the Douro. Archaeologists working on the site found thousands of rock engravings: horses, aurochs and ibex scratched into the schist. The oldest, from the Palaeolithic, are more than twenty thousand years old.

A national campaign, run under the slogan ‘As gravuras não sabem nadar’ (‘the engravings can’t swim’), had the work halted in 1995. Three years later the rock art of the Côa became a Unesco World Heritage Site. The museum that presents it opened in 2010. On this trip, only the Mazouco horse, near Freixo, can be seen without a guide.

What not to miss

1. 1The citadel of BragançaThe keep, the Domus Municipalis and the Mask Museum, all within the same walls.
2. 2Miranda do DouroA former episcopal town on the canyon rim, where Mirandese is still spoken.
3. 3The Spanish-side viewpointsLas Barrancas, El Fraile, Vilvestre: the canyon seen from Spain.
4. 4Freixo de Espada à CintaA granite town and its Manueline church, among the almond trees.
5. 5The Museu do CôaThe Palaeolithic engravings of the Côa valley, and the museum that explains them.
6. 6Castelo RodrigoA fortified village, with the ruins of a palace that the villagers burnt in 1640, at the end of Spanish rule.

The international Douro in pictures

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The citadel of Bragança: the keep, the crenellated walls and, on the right, the Princess Tower.

The plateau’s table

The Mirandese plateau has its own breed of cattle, the mirandesa, and its own dish, the posta mirandesa: a thick cut grilled over a wood fire and served without ceremony. Alheiras, sausages of bread, poultry and pork, have their capital at Mirandela, three quarters of an hour from Bragança.

In late February and early March, almond trees in blossom whiten the slopes around Freixo and Foz Côa. The journey ends with a glass of port, in the valley where it is made.