Praia Da Loma & Praia Zebreiros
Already with paddle boards, we started touring the best river beaches of Porto.
The first one was Praia da Lomba which was on the other side of the river, and it took us almost 50 minutes to get there. You pay 1.50 euros toll and 2 euros for parking.
The beach was nice, but it was very dirty and already at 9 am, there were screaming children. It was Saturday and August.
We inflated the boards and went for a ride that in total was 3 hours.
The next day we went to Praia Zebreiros which was 16 minutes away by car. This beach was cleaner and less crowded.
We took a tour along the Sousa River. On this day the noise from the music on the other side of the Douro River and the motorcycles was a horror. It was unbearable.
Also, when we returned at noon the traffic was horrible and we nearly had an accident on two occasions; one with a van that crossed us and another with a guy on a motorcycle that also crossed the road as if traffic rules did not exist in his world.
In almost mid-August, this made me think about not going out any more for the rest of the month because the worst of humanity was loose in Porto.
Our river beach
A 10-minute walk from our house we arrive at the Marina de Freixo where a route begins next to the river that reaches Gondomar.
It is a beautiful route along which there are also a couple of river beaches.
One Saturday, as we got up late, we decided to go to one of these beaches since it is the closest to us and so as not to lose travel time.
Fortunately, the day was cloudy and there was no one. We inflated the paddle boards and started the tour. We went against the current with the hope that the return would be easy.
The tour was super nice and at the end, we arrived at an idyllic beach without people. In addition, we saw some dream houses.
To return as the tide had risen, we had the current and the wind against us.
Castelo de Paiva & Praia de Marecos
This weekend we picked up Luna to take her paddle boarding for the first time.
On Saturday we went to Castelo de Paiva where the Douro, Támega and Paiva rivers converge.
We went around the small island and went on the Paiva River which looked the calmest. We saw a lot of people paddle boarding and from noon onwards small boats also started to pass by.
At the end we reached another small island, and that part was most idyllic.
As we didn’t want to go that far on Sunday, we opted for Praia de Marecos which was 15 minutes away by car.
The outward journey was very pleasant, and we reached Praia de Zebreiros. The way back was difficult because it started to get very windy.
This second day Luna was much more confident on the paddle board.
We found vines full of grapes and ate wild blackberries.
Praia Luzim
This beach was almost an hour’s drive away in the Penafiel area.
As it was already September, there was no one there and it was pure peace and quiet. Besides, it was not windy that day and the tour was very pleasant.
The bad thing is that everything was extremely dirty, and you could see garbage on the sides of the river at an excessive level, even construction debris. In the water there was also a lot of garbage.
Praia das Azenhas
In September it had already started to get cold in Porto, but on the 24th it was going to be warm, so we took the opportunity to go paddle boarding.
I wanted to go to the sea as we had not gone all summer to avoid the crowds. We arrived at Valadares in Vila Nova de Gaia and there was a tremendous swell, so we decided to go to a river beach.
We went to Praia das Azenhas and did a short route because it was already late. This was the only day since we started paddle boarding in Porto that we found the river water crystal clear.
