The big buzz in many papers and newscasts around the world has been the story about the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world opening in Portugal. The bridge is named “516 Arouca” because it is 516 meters (1,693 feet) in length and is in Arouca, Portugal. For a country known for it’s long, difficult-to-pronounce names, this one might have been thought up by a marketing team. 516 Arouca will fit perfectly on a t-shirt or a coffee mug.
Make no mistake about it, though, this is an impressive engineering feat built over one of the most spectacular scenes in nature. 516 Arouca is suspended 175 meters (574 feet) above the Paiva river and links the granite cliffs on both sides. Dinosaurs once roamed this region and fossils are still being discovered 200 million years later.
While on the bridge, half of my brain was trying to grasp the magnitude of millions of years of raging rivers that carved out this massive canyon filled with dinosaur bones, and the super-human feat of stringing a bridge across it. The other half of my brain was trying to remember if I put my car in park, and if it could roll to the middle of the narrow, curving road.
The bridge cost 10€ to cross and 100€ to return. Kidding, of course. There was no additional charge to come back, as long as your legs would still carry you. It is not that crossing the bridge itself took all that much energy, but the hundreds of wooden steps to the bridge were steep and seemed endless. And I swear they added a few hundred more just prior to us heading back to our car. Oh, and by the way, I had remembered to put on my parking brake.
About the parking, though, we couldn’t find it. There were four rocky spaces before the stairs and three after the stairs. I don’t know how I got so lucky to actually grab the last space, seeing that there were dozens of people waiting to cross the bridge by foot. Where all the people parked, we don’t know, but we read that it was just a little bit farther down the road.
If you are living in Portugal and plan on walking the bridge, don’t forget to book your tickets online so that you can be assigned your time slot. Plan to leave at least an hour earlier than your GPS tells you. You will need it.
People asked me if I was afraid to be that high up. Listen, I won’t bungee jump and I won’t skydive, but I will walk across a perfectly engineered bridge any day of the week. This is not a bridge made out of bamboo and twine that brave souls cross in remote parts of the undeveloped world. This is heavy-duty steel with massive cables buried 70 meters deep into the ground.
While I was not afraid to walk on the bridge, we did have some terrifying moments on the roads driving there and back. Let me tell you about it.
First of all, I have an appointment to get bodywork on my car done this week because I scraped a pole that jumped up in the middle of nowhere a few months back. Friends say it’s not worth fixing because most cars in Portugal end up with scrapes and dents due to extremely narrow roads and poles that jump up out of nowhere.
The highways in Portugal are great, among the best in the world. But every now and then you need to get off the highway and that’s when you need to stay focused.
On the Road to Hotel Rural da Freita
We stayed at Hotel Rural da Freita, the perfect romantic getaway, in the mountains about a 40-minute drive from the bridge. It was a wonderful hotel, with spectacular views, ten rooms and an extremely pleasant and accommodating staff. It was 60€ for the night and that included an excellent breakfast with bacon and eggs, crepes, yogurt and granola, etc.
Naturally, there was a long and winding road to get there. Like many of the roads here, it is a two-way road wide enough for one-and-a-half cars. I don’t think there are enough roads to design one-way roads. Widening the roads would be wildly expensive with all of the gulches to contend with.
Hardly any guardrails, either. That might be because if there were guardrails, you couldn’t inch your way to the side when a car is coming in the opposite direction. I guess the engineers decided that the best solution would be to paint a line down the middle of the road. Voila! Problem solved. Except that every car coming our way was straddling the line. One driver has to slow down and inch over to allow the other to pass. Hence, no guardrails.
Restaurante Mira Freita and More Harrowing Roads
Anyway, I made a reservation to share an intimate dinner with my beautiful wife at Restaurante Mira Freita, about a twelve-minute, long and winding road from the hotel. So far, so good. We were served the most amazing meal. I asked the waiter what their specialty was and he told me it was braised lamb. That was already much different than here in Ericeira where practically every specialty is some kind of seafood. I hadn’t eaten lamb in decades and couldn’t remember if I liked it or not. But it was their specialty, and I will eat almost anything as long as it is burnt sufficiently.
Cathy had the barbecued chicken, also delicious. We ordered half-orders because we had been told that their servings were generous. We also ordered wine, of course, because it is Portugal, after all. We keep forgetting that when you order wine in Portugal, expecting them to pour you a glass, they bring you the whole bottle. That is when you shrug your shoulders and drink the whole bottle rather than expose yourself as a non-European. We also had home-made bread and butter, appetizing soup and salad and the most delicious fried sliced potatoes either of had ever had.
Needless to say, we couldn’t even finish half of it. The entire bill, including the bottle of very good wine, with tip, came to only 45€. We had him wrap it up for us to put in the hotel fridge for us to take home and feast on for the next two days.
The Scary Part
First, I am going to try to describe the foggy drive back from the restaurant to the hotel. Then I will describe the foggy and rainy drive the following morning to the highway. Friday was a glorious sunny day. Perfect for walking the glorious suspension bridge. Even driving to the hotel and then the restaurant was pleasant enough. But as we were in the restaurant feasting and drinking our wine, the mountain fog rolled in.
We didn’t order dessert because, besides being stuffed, I was a bit concerned about driving in the fog. And it usually takes the waiter about 20 minutes to bring your check. They never do it unless you beg them or tackle them. It is considered impolite to bring someone a check until one is expressed succinctly.
So, we got in the car and the fog was now so thick that we couldn’t see ten feet in front of us. All I could see was the white line in the middle of the one-and-a-half lane road. I hugged that line, driving about five-miles-per-hour. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic coming the other direction but whenever I saw headlights I slowed down even more and inched my way to the right.
Then there was a cow’s enormous rear-end right in front of us. Cows always have the right-of-way so I carefully passed it on the left and hoped that there was not another car or cow coming the other way.
Cathy carefully narrated the bends and turns shown on the navigation screen, because I didn’t want to avert my eyes for a moment. I also now appreciated the wisdom of painting of those white lines down the middle of the narrow road. We made it back to the hotel safe and sound and congratulated ourselves for the team effort.
But Wait. There’s More!
But that harrowing experience was NOTHING compared to the torturous trek leaving the hotel the next morning.
It was 11:00 and check-out time. It was still foggy and now raining to boot. We started out one direction and then turned around to go the other direction because Elvira couldn’t figure out which way to go. On a previous driving excursion I had named our GPS “Elvira”, as in Mistress of the Dark.
Elvira says to turn right. She takes us on a cobblestone road which I instinctively did not trust, even though she speaks in a trustworthy British accent. And then we came to a muddy trail with two ancient, haunted granite homes situated way too close together for my taste. I said, “Cathy, this does not feel right. Let’s turn back.” But my ever-trusting wife says if modern satellite technology is directing us, then how wrong can it be. Of course, that is what Michael Scott said in an episode of The Office before they drove the car into the lake.
I wouldn’t call this a double-dog dare, but for whatever reason, I followed her misguided instincts.
Elvira now seduces us to turn left, barely clearing the granite houses. We are committed now. And then it got worse and I calmly expressed to my dear wife what another fine mess she had gotten me into. She said we would laugh about this later. But “later” seemed a long way off at this point.
Then Elvira takes on one more ridiculous, hairpin turn between two more old, granite, immovable houses which we barely navigate. There on the left is a man butchering a goat.
He calmly looks at us, from his courtyard which we are now trespassing on, with a large dog beside him.
On the right is another granite building and straight ahead is a set of stairs going up. Elvira has taking me to a set of stairs with no way to back up.
Then Cathy suggests we back up anyway, and her wish is my command. She gets out of the car and I back up as far as I can. She lets me know that I did not turn the wheel sharp enough to the right. I calmly inform her that she must not have seen the granite boulder on my left, which interfered with my ability to turn the wheel more sharply to the right.
The Dog Sent from God
The dog that was previously with the goat butcherer is now standing on the steps, telling me that this was the only way out. No, she didn’t exactly verbalize it, but her body language couldn’t have been more clear. She was pointing in the up direction and her head was turned back toward me, with eyes that said, “Trust me on this”.
I know all about Son of Sam and how he listened to the dog when it told him to kill all those people in New York. But this dog was not demonic. Besides, I’m not going to kill the man butchering the goat. He’s carrying a very large sharp machete-like knife. And I’m not going to kill my wife because that would be wrong.
Anyway, the dog isn’t telling me to kill anyone, as he did with Son of Sam. He is just beckoning me forward, up the mud-sided steps in my beat-up Land Rover. Did I say beat-up Land Rover? I meant my once-shiny, once-flawless Mercedes. What was I thinking when I splurged to buy this luxury car?I guess I was thinking that it would never leave the highway.
There is a narrow strip of mud to the right and to the left of this stairway. The strips are about a foot wide and I think that I can narrowly avoid the stone steps. Cathy does not see the dog, let alone trust her, but I am pretty sure it is real and not one of my hallucinations.
Cathy is 100% against this choice. She gets out of the car and cannot watch. But I see no other way out. I wish I had taken pictures but I was too panicked to think about it at the time.
Can’t back up. Can’t turn around. Can’t call for help. And I swear the dog has seen this before and is telling me to trust her. The choice now is which woman to trust. I go with the dog.
With Cathy still standing cautiously in the mud behind me, I step on the gas and try to zip through the narrow exit to freedom. But the wheels spin in the mud and I have to back up a few feet and try again. I am gaining traction, but the car is not entirely following in a straight trajectory. But “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!”
I narrowly avoid the granite wall on the sides of the steps, also miraculously avoiding the steps, as my car stays on the two mud strips and follows the dog as she gallops ahead of me. Lo and behold, at the top is an open road! I drive a good 100 yards and honk for Cathy. Huffing and puffing she asks why I was honking. She thought I was trying to rush her. But it was only because that is what people do in the fog. That was my foghorn.
What? No pats on the back for job well done? Well, fair enough, me having blamed her is still fresh and trumps us avoiding crushed metal in a semi-abandoned goat slaughterhouse.
Freedom!
Cathy hops in the car and we find an actual road. Then who do I see up ahead? The dog! She’s saying, “Well done, my friend. Well done!” Is there any doubt why dog is man’s best friend?
We drive on for a few more miles and I apologized to my wife for blaming her for our near-death experience and asked if we could laugh about it now. Too soon? Okay. But a few miles later we were able to laugh about it. Until we realized that we left our scrumptious food in the fridge back at the hotel. Should we go back and get it? Hell no!
To add a side note, that big, beautiful dog was actually walking on the side of the road just before we took that fateful turn towards disaster. When I saw her standing beside the farmer slaughtering the goat, it seemed oddly coincidental. But hearing that she led you up the hill is downright amazing!!
Yes, I believe you were covering your eyes while my spirit-animal was guiding us to safety. Thank you for being a good sport throughout the ordeal. Something to laugh about now, right love?
I really enjoyed reading about your harrowing escape from the confines of the road you were on, if you want to call it a road. You failed to tell us that part over the phone. Of course, to me, seeing the butchering of the goat would have been one of the worst parts.😢 Aside from that, I admire your tenacity of making it up all those stairs to get to the bridge. I doubt the strength in my legs to do that. Maybe I am just being negative. Anyway, so glad you had a great time and made it home safe and sound. You are a good driver, Bob. Also, thank you, Mercedes Benz!🙏🏻
Jill, you definitely would have made it up the stairs just fine! I consider myself a good enough driver now, I guess, but I have totaled a few cars along the way.
I’m laughing now! Loved taking this excursion with you.😘💕🥂
Let the good times roll! 💕
Bob I called the British voiced gps voice Eeeevilen during my France visit!
It would be fun to play around with different accents, but they are all evil at the core and if they get any smarter they will try to kill us. That’s just my opinion, though. 🙂
That was a great one Bobby! I know I tell you they’re all good, but this one kept me in suspense like a Grisham novel. And Mercedes should give you a fee for the endorsement. The pictures were alluring and you both look to be in great shape!
Thank you, Ricky! I appreciate that. When you and Shelley visit, we will take you somewhere fun. But probably not the bridge.
Bob, you had me laughing. And hyperventilating. What fun!!!
We were hyperventilating also! But it took us a bit longer to start laughing about it.
Enjoyed your re-counting of the GPS-induced adventure. The pedestrian bridge turned into a sidelight. And it was nice a cow wasn’t coming from the other direction. You had me laughing. Thanks again Bob
Yes, the walk across the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world would have been anticlimactic if it came at the end of the trip. I am glad it came first, though, because it was truly magnificent and very enjoyable.
Even better than usual, and since we know you both, I can see all of this happening, and hear the conversations. WONDERFUL!
😀
Oh my goodness, you two and your adventures! The good thing about memories are you will remember the exciting suspension bridge and the fabulous meal at the restaurant longer than you will remember the harrowing car ride escape…..I hope! Well done, Team Burrows! Crossing that bridge was an amazing life experience!
Right now I’m remembering the food we left back in the hotel fridge. ☹
What an adventure you had while Sky was chasing butterflies in our garden! Loved reading about it and the pictures of the bridge are amazing. We know first hand what it’s like to be lost in windy roads in Portugal (we had a truly scary experience on a foggy night somewhere outside Tabuaço). So now we always check google maps as well. Also, if you do decide to visit Sistelo as I suggested to Cathy, be prepared for more cows on the road 🙂
It is so good that we can go on these adventures knowing that you and Pedro are taking such good care of Sky when we are away. Dogs are not allowed on the bridge, which I can understand completely. Siselo is now on our list!
She makes it easy by being such a sweetheart. Agree with you 100%, no dogs on the bridge sounds smart. Thank you so much for trusting us with Sky again. Looking forward to reading about your next adventures.
🤣 What a funny a story and a great laugh we had.
I’m glad that you enjoyed it. 😉
Best post yet! Really enjoyed,
but … yes, should have turned back for your doggy bags !!and then turned LEFT!
Hindsight is 2020 but this is 2021!
WOW. Not sure I am brave enough for the your bridge although I have been on one here that is no where as long. I thought the roads here were tough, but yours could be more difficult with immovable objects. Enjoyed reading your adventures.
I am sure you are having some of your own there in Medellín!
I’m so glad the world is opening back up for you to have more adventures like these!
Yes! We will you take you on a few when you visit. 🥰
Bob,
As always, never a dull moment! What an incredible experience. Thanks
Actually, I don’t mind enjoying a dull moment now and then. 😃
Excellent read Bobby. Can’t believe the adventure and the bridge!
It was a fun weekend!
What an excursion! You two are beyond adventurous!
You couldn’t pay me to……..
The bridge- NO WAY, the road NO WAY, the Fog- No WAY,!!
I Would have spent the night in the restaurant snuggling a dog and ,
eating my way through the menu til fog and rain cleared, Even if it took days. Although I truly look forward to all your travels and enjoy reading about your adventures, I am just a wimp at heart. But wonderful to have friends that CAN! Glad you survived and were able to 😂 laugh.
I think a better choice would have been a Subaru vs Mercedes. 😌
I’m sure you would be running across that bridge in no time. You’re fearless! But you would have had to sleep in the restaurant before the fog lifted. 🙂
Serra da Freita is one of my favourite places in Portugal, magic on a motorcycle! Haven’t been to the bridge, that must be fixed soon.
It must be a lot of fun on a motorcycle! You will love the bridge!