Paredes: Travel and tourism

The county of Paredes lies on the bucolic Sousa valley, and the river and mountain sceneries, which provide good conditions for the practice of escalading and canoeing, form its most important tourist assets.

The river Sousa runs between steep cliffs and escarpments and offers spectacular sights, such as the place where is falls abruptly in a cascade of 80 metres known as Salto do Sousa (Sousa leap), near the small town of Aguiar de Sousa, and where there is also a solitary chapel in honour of Our Lady of the Leap.

According to legend, a knight which was chasing the Devil, who had adopted the shape of a stag, jumped into the abyss with his horse but evoked Our Lady and landed safely on the opposite bank, where the prints of the horse-shoes are said to be still visible.

In terms of architectural and religious patrimony, it is worth admiring the Roman bridge at the town of Paredes, the beautiful church of Bitarães, with Romanesque traces and rich gilded woodwork, the Romanesque monastery of Cête, displaying a tower with battlements and an unusual coat of arms over the church's portal, and the 19th-century Palacete da Granja, a mansion in the Neo-classical style, at the parish of Castelões de Cepeda.

Paredes boasts of a regional cuisine which offers traditional specialities such as roast kid with oven-baked rice and a typical dessert called sopa seca (dry soup), made with bread, sugar, cinnamon and lemon.