Here’s an e-mail I received recently..
“Graham, just thought I would tell you about our wonderful day out on the river mondego. Thanks so much for the recommendation.
Last week a group of friends and I hired canoes from www.opioneirodomongego.com and had a wonderful day on the river.
Although the 24-kilometer distance was at first a little daunting, the organisation was smooth, the weather warm and the river wonderful.
Our small group was joined by two French, a Brazilian and a Dane. All had little or no experience.
After being picked up at the car park in the village of Tores, Mondego on the A110 road from Coimbra to Penecova we were driven up to a launching site near Penecova. The canoes were unloaded for us and we carried them to the water’s edge. As there were six of us we had two double canoes and two single canoes between the group and swapped places with each other when we felt like a change during the paddle down river. The canoes were wide and large so that they are easy to handle even by inexperienced paddlers. Even if you do happen to fall in there is safety equipment such as buoyancy vests and stay dry storage containers for cameras and mobile phones. Incidentally the river was surprisingly warm and very nice to swim in.
After some multi-lingual training on handling the canoes and details of the various refreshment stops on the way to the final pick up point we slapped on some sun screen and entered the water to paddle off down stream.
The pace was gentle with the river doing almost all of the work. I estimate that with paddling you are only going 20% faster than not, so you can relax and enjoy the scenery with birds of prey, kites I think, kingfishers, herons and many other birds to be seen as well as fish of all sizes.
We decided to stop on a deserted river beach to eat our sandwiches with some bottled water. We thought that the bottles contained water but in fact it was terrible, low quality lemonade. The small shopkeeper who sold us the 6 x 1.5 litre bottles must have thought crazy foreigners when we walked out of his shop.
Refreshed, we carried on to the next stop – a very nicely organised river beach. This had a wide expanse of sand gently shelving into warm water. The cafe served drinks, snacks and ice creams so we all had a drink, soaked up the sun and another swim before setting off on the final 25 minutes of the paddle which brought us back to our cars.
The hire companies staff carried our canoes out of the water and loaded them on to their trailers.
We headed of home with lots of very nice memories of a great day out.
Thanks again, a great day out and a great recommendation.”
There is plenty more to do on offer in Central Portugal, and you can find weekly listings at Coimbra Property Shop. If you would like to do this river trip contact www.opioneirodomondego.com or try 239 478 385.
Tags: canoe, Canoeing, canoeing in portugal, canoeing on the mondego, canoeing on the river mondego, Coimbra, mondego, Penacova, to do, what to do in coimbra
