The Pisão mills are a remarkable set of 13 watermills that aligns along the Contença river, a tributary of river Varoso, of which more than 6 are fully recovered and able to work. They’re located in the Carvalhais – São Pedro do Sul Biological Park, a nature recreational and enjoyment space, nestled on the slopes of the Arada mountain. The mills take the cascade stream water from a series of laborious granite aqueducts leading the water to each of the casters. It is worth noting the use of excavated tree trunks to build a waterway, due to its good condition and rarity. The presence of these rotation watermills witness its great importance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, probably because the corn bread (boroa) was the main food of rural populations.
The surrounding woods of this river have thermophilic elements, relics of subtropical forests, as the strawberry tree and the laurestine. On the trees, the squirrels are easily observed in their busy running around. The camberwell beauty and the lesser purple emperor butterflies are assiduous inhabitants of the riverside woods; the iberian emerald lizard and the white-throated dipper feed on invertebrates on the banks and bed of the river, respectively.The forest, once planted by the public forest services, is now mature, with mushrooms associated to the roots of those trees as the charcoal burner mushroom, very spicy in flavor, and the delicious golden chanterelle, highly valued in gastronomy.
The castro da Cárcoda (archeological site), classified in 1955 as MIP Monument of Public Interest, is a fortified settlement with about 10 hectares with the approximate shape of a triangle. The foundations of 25 houses here uncovered are at tributable to the Iron Age (round plant) and Roman era (quadrangular) and were inhabited between the seventh century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. The town was surrounded by a double wall with a perimeter of 660 meters and two very effective water lines as a defense device. Here were also found engravings attributed to the Atlantic art of peninsular northwest, similar to those found elsewhere in the region.
