Mature Flâneur

Wild Horses in the Wild Mountains of Portugal’s Only National Park

Such a vast wilderness in such a small country

Who rolled all these rocks uphill? All photos by Tim Ward except as noted.

Who put those big round boulders on the mountaintops? It’s as if Sisyphus kept winning, rolling each rock up to the top, then another and another — and not one of them rolling back down. How did thousands upon thousands of them get up so high, here in Peneda-Gerês National Park in the far north of Portugal?

Teresa (my adventurous Portuguese spouse) and I had long wished to explore this vast and remote park tucked right up against the northern border with Spain. So on our most recent fling through Portugal in February 2025, we carved out three days at a mountain chalet, which offered a fabulous view of the park.

Talk about a room with a view!

How does such a small country, when you look at it on a map of Europe, manage to contain a wilderness so vast? Peneda-Gerês National Park is a region so wild, so expansive, that the elusive Iberian wolf still roams these hills — plus wild boar, Spanish ibex, an endemic and endangered roe deer, and wild horses. Not escaped wild horses either. These horses have been wild forever.