Parque Cerdeira
Campo do Gerês · Sleeps 2 or more
Camping under oak and chestnut inside the Peneda-Gerês, Portugal's only national park.
€
- Mountain views
- National park edge
- On a long-distance trail
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Photographs by Camping El Cares, used with permission.
Camping El Cares
Santa Marina de Valdeón, León, Picos de Europa
A family site high in the Valdeón valley, a few kilometres above the Cares gorge walk.
Why we love it
The Ruta del Cares is a path cut into the side of a limestone gorge, twelve kilometres each way, and it is the reason most people come to the Picos at all. Staying at this end means starting early, before the day-trippers arrive from the coast.
Small, family-run, and — by the accounts of people who have stayed — run by someone who will sit down and explain the mountains to you properly before you set off.
Best for: walking the Cares gorge before anyone else is on it
Worth knowing
- The cabins have neither a bathroom nor a kitchen. You use the campsite's communal blocks, and a kitchen can be rented subject to availability.
- Cabin beds come with a fitted sheet and nothing else — bring blankets or a sleeping bag, or hire a kit at €2 a night.
- The site is given over to its own MusiCares world-music festival over the first weekend of July — 3 to 5 July in 2026 — when the campsite can only be booked by festival-goers and the €25-a-head ticket is compulsory.
The practicalities
- Bring
- Blankets or a sleeping bag if you are in a cabin — the beds come with a fitted sheet only
- Extras
- Bedding kit for a cabin — sleeping bag, sheet liner and pillow — €2 per night, worth booking ahead
Getting there
- Nearest station
- Guardo — 35.6 miles
- Without a car
- Difficult, but possible
The address is Camino del Rejo s/n, Santa Marina de Valdeón. The site has a lower area, where the shop, restaurant, toilets and laundry are, and an upper area reached by crossing the river that runs through the campsite — further from the services, with the views.
What is around it
Walks
- Ruta del Cares — About 22 km one way from Posada de Valdeón to Poncebos. The operator rates it easy — roughly 720 m of descent and 100 m of climb — and says some stretches of road have to be walked in single file.
Towns
- Posada de Valdeón · 3 miles — Where the operator's own account of the Cares route begins.
- Caín · 7.6 miles — The head of the gorge section proper, about 10 km down the path from Posada de Valdeón.
Days out
- Mirador del Tombo — On the route past Cordiñanes, with an interpretation table for the Central Massif peaks and a chamois statue.
- Chorco de los Lobos — The old wolf trap on the path down the valley, at the end of a system of palisades the whole valley was once obliged to work.
Who runs it
The operator's own account: in the summer of 1984 a young man born in Santa Marina de Valdeón brought the campsite into being through his own efforts, to make a space where people could feel nature in all its splendour. The site does not name him.
Where it is
Checked August 2026 · We re-verify prices and opening every quarter.
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