Portela do Homem

The name describes a door. Portela is the diminutive of the Latin porta, and in Galician and Portuguese it names the col, the low pass between mountains —⁠the little gate by which a range is crossed without being crowned⁠—⁠. This one, at eight hundred and twenty-two metres, is the natural gate of the Gerês, and through it Rome threaded its Via Nova two thousand years ago; today it marks the border between Portugal and Galicia. The second element, do Homem, 'of the man', is the name of the river whose valley the pass follows: probably an old hydronym reinterpreted. Right here, on the border, survive some of the most famous milestones of the Camino, Roman columns that still tell how many miles it is to Braga.