In a way, the River Avelames is part of Pedras Salgadas Park; it contours it, shapes it and forms a frontier, and embraces it. The requalification of its banks – done with the cooperation of a landscape architect and a water engineer – suggested making the course of the river more organic and to remedy the lack of water in summer when the riverbed runs dry, by creating a series of dykes.

So, the banks of the river are no longer an imposition due to the water’s encounter with the surrounding terrain, whilst the river bed, which essentially ran straight, now twists and turns, resembling a slithering snake. Bridges were also built so that the route was not dictated by one single way to cross the river and what used to be an obstacle became a source of enjoyment.

The creation of these crossing places made the path a trail. Seating areas, river beaches and small jetties punctuate the river banks for the enjoyment of the park’s users and the local population. The idea presiding over the entire concept is taken from the era of thermal romanticism: families setting out food on snowy white linen tablecloths, a child learning to row in a small boat moored to the bank by a rope, a couple of noisy, adolescent bathers racing each other towards an imaginary finishing line.