Barçelos to Ponte de Lima May 22 - 33.6kms*

Ponte de Lima lays claim to being Portugal's oldest city and it must take pride in being one if its most charming. The bus took us to the top of the main street, a cobblestoned road leading through open-air cafes down to the beautiful riverside where a medieval stone bridge spans the tranquil Rio Lima. Just a great place for a mid-morning cup of tea, a cappuccino and some pastries. Our hotel, Mercearia da Vila, is well suited to this quaint setting, another ideal central location which means we have all the historical and culinary delights this town has to offer within a few steps.

We had a fairly laid back day wandering around this little town. We finally decided that I should see a 'medico' to see if I could do something to hasten the healing process for this Achilles Tendinitis I have in both feet which makes walking so painful. The doctor spoke Portuguese and French. I spoke English and a mixed up smattering of French and Spanish. Somehow we communicated sufficiently enough that I now have more drugs, some healing spray and donut hole heel inserts. The weight of the pack has increased.

Not surprisingly for this riverside town, we found a restaurant overlooking the water where we could sit out and enjoy a light dinner of tapas. It seems chefs always challenge themselves to find creative combinations for tapas. Dayton had duck carapacio and a sausage scramble with egg. It was such a pleasant evening with temperatures staying in the shirt sleeve range - until the sun went down and then in a matter of seconds a chill took over the air and everyone was reaching for jackets and the legs to their hiking pants.

This is a welcomed stop for pilgrims and we did have some mixed feelings of envy and relief when we saw the peregrinos walking into town at the end of a long hot hike with their backs. Maybe they had the same feelings as they walked past us sitting there under a shady umbrella sipping vinho.

View from our room.

View from our afternoon cafe.

 

Crossing Ponte de Lima.

Ponte de Lima at night.

 

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Vila do Conde to Barcelos May 21 - 22km*

Another day, another bus

A beautiful sunny day for a 22km bus ride into Barcelos. As usual Dayton has found and booked us into a hotel that is ideally located, right in the centre and heart of the town. Our Hotel Terco is right on the major centre town square where every Thursday Portugal's oldest and most traditional open-air market is held and today is Thursday. The market stalls fill the square peddling everything from vegetables and fruits, to cheese, breads, Iberian ham, salted cod, chicks, chickens and hens, flowers and plants, and all manner of clothing and household goods. But..if I buy it, I have to carry it so there is no personal shopping going on here.

Dayton is going to tour this town, find and walk its Camino route and I am going to stay at the hotel, rest Whatever is bothering my feet and watch the clothes dry. This may not be the Camino we planned but each day has come with its own little gifts and surprises; a great tapas bar, an open air market, a lovely waterfront, or chance encounters with other pilgrims and wonderfully, welcoming and helpful souls to help you get what you need and enjoy it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Porto to Vila do Conde May 20 - 26.9kms*

One makes plans and the universe just laughs.

The Great Camino Portuguese Metro/Bus/Taxi Bread and Wine Tour

There is a lesson to be learned here. Our day definitely did not go as planned or, more accurately, as we had hoped. Time to make lemons into lemonade and turn an ordeal into an adventure. Our hope was that a rest and relaxation day in Porto would magically heal the nagging tendinitis in my left heel but at the end of the day I had tendinitis in both heels. This morning we got ready early planning to take the Metro to the coastal village Matosinhos where we intended to start walking the boardwalks along the coast line 23kms to Vila do Conde. This was a walk we were both so looking forward to; a beautiful trek along the Atlantic coastline. Unfortunately the walk from our room to the elevator put a quick end to that idea. New plans had to be made.

Plan B (as in 'bummed out') was to take the Metro straight to Vila do Conde and rest my tendinitis. We did walk out from the centre of town to the ocean where the wind from the North was strong enough to knock me off my tender feet and the sand was blasting into our faces. That beautiful trek along the Atlantic coastline might have been a little bit tougher than we had envisioned. Maybe we dodged a bullet on this one. We looked for the ship museum but got distracted by a restaurant where they were grilling fish on an outdoor barbeque. It seems like a good plan to relax and have lunch; grilled sardines and batatas o murrah or something like that.

We found another culinary gem this evening, the tapas bar, São Roque. Tapas bar does not seem an elegant enough description for this dining experience. Dayton had some really unique tapas, one of which was battered and deep fried sausage meatballs cut in half and resting in the middle of these little nests of sausage were perfectly cooked bird's eggs. Vegetarian tapas are an oddity but they did offer me a variety of sweet breads (actually bread not the meat variety) which were deep fried. I see a low carb diet in my future.

Stretching calves to alleviate heel pain?

Roman aqueducts.

 

Fresh grilled Sardinahs.

 

 

 

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Porto May 19

" Does this path have a heart"?

John Brierley used the above quote from The Teachings of Don Juan and commented that if the path does then it is all good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. I guess that was our sense of the highway trek into Porto yesterday. Porto itself definitely has a heart; a vibrant, authentic, historic one, a city of use and of value.

Our Rest and Rehab day in Porto started with a late and lazy breakfast and then we went out to explore the offerings of this city on the river of gold - el Rio Douro. Our first stop and tour was of the Torres dos Clérigos, The Clergymen's Tower, an 18th century baroque tower that, at 75 metres high, is the city's main landmark. We paid €3.00 each to wind our way up the steep spiral staircase to experience the 360 degree view of the city. It was a wee bit claustrophobic going up the narrow 238 step staircase but that was trumped by the vertigo at the top. However, yay me, I did it.

Porto has a long history of being a vibrant and economically flourishing city. In the 12th century, Portugal took its name from the city of Porto, the city of Port wine, a major reason that the city's economy was flourishing. We did what we could to help that economy continue flourishing. Crossing the Ponte de D. Luis I bridge to the south side of the River Duoro, we found winery after winery of Port wine. All the wineries were overbooked with group tours but we were not really interested in the tours anyway, just the wine tasting. We went to both the Kopke and the Croft winery to educate our Port pallet and enjoyed a variety of dry white, rosé, Ruby, Lagrima and Tawny port wines. They were served with a variety of white, milk and dark chocolate and almonds. Not being a chocolate or Port wine connoisseur, these were all a new taste sensations for me.

We wove our way back over the bridge, the weaving probably all because of the Port imbibing, and found a great tapas bar for lunch, for wine and for sitting in the sun.

Retracing our steps back to the river, we ended our day in Porto with a unique and wonderful dining experience at Jimão, a wine and tapas restaurant. We had reserved for their first seating which might have seemed a bit Canadian and a bit gauche but turned out to be a bonus for us as the owner, Carmen, gave us her undivided and overly attentive attention. She guided our choices to the more unique items on her menu and it was all so fresh and flavourful. We started off with the traditional bread, olive and sheep's cheese platter which gave new meaning to fresh. This was accompanied by a lovely dry red Douro wine. Dayton had mussels with pickled red and green peppers and Iberian ham covered in Brie and a tomato jam on toast while I had a tasty sun-dried tomato and onion tart and some 'batatas bravas', potatoes with an olive oil/paprika tapenade. Dayton finished the meal off with a smooth 10 year old special reserve Ruby port - which he shared. Definitely a memorable occasion. The two kilometre hike uphill back to our hotel made us think that we were in some way forgiven for this culinary indulgence. If not, who cares?

Tomorrow the plan is to take transportation to the coastal town of Matosinhos where we will start to walk 22kms to Vila do Conde. We will see how the swollen ankles, tendinitis and blistered feet do. We are having fun.

Porto at night.

The "Fado" boys.

 

Porto from the Torres dos Clérigos.

 

Climbing the tower.

 

 

Port tasting.

 

 

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Oliveira de Azeméis to Porto May 18 - 44.3kms* (walked 10)

I need to explain the asterisk I posted beside the kilometres listed yesterday and today. I wanted the distance between places to be accurate, especially for anyone reading this and planning their own Camino, but we did not walk the entire way. Yesterday we took a cab from Agueda to Albergaria a Velha and walked only the last 20kms into Oliveira. Today we walked the first 10kms to São João and, as you will read, finished the rest by bus. There is every likelihood that that asterisk will appear again and again. Tendinitis! So now on to today's blog.

ThIs morning the streets of Oliveira de Azeméis were still being set back to normal as Dayton and I left at 7:30am after a really good and big breakfast. For the past year my breakfast, after our daily early morning workout, has consisted of a protein shake and some fruit. Not here. This morning, despite no workout, I indulged in a huge fresh Portuguese bun filled with tomatoes and cheese. I don't think this country is tolerant of gluten intolerance.

Dayton and I walked a couple of hours towards and into São João da Madeira where we met up with Eman and John. Together we went to the bus station to catch a bus into Porto. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the route into Porto is uninspired and, with mostly road walking beside busy highways, unrewarding. We chose to avoid it. It was soon obvious that we were not the only ones who made this choice. We met more pilgrims at the bus station than we have along the entire Camino Portuguese so far. It appears that everyone has formed the same opinion about this stage of the Camino.

In Porto we found our hotel and, because check in was not until mid afternoon and no exceptions, we left our packs and went out to tour this city. Porto is a huge city. It is a sprawling city, old, busy, touristy, weathered and well worn, and expensive ( at least in comparison to where we have been in the past two weeks). We lunched at the restaurant on the first floor of our hotel, wandered the streets, visited one of the main cathedrals, and then walked down 238 steps winding through little alley streets to the river. We walked out onto this massive incredibly high multi-levelled bridge spanning the River Douro. The waterside was lined with restaurant after restaurant and there were old fashioned boats and river cruise boats moored at dockside. Dayton and I were seriously and longingly looking at those river cruise boats. We then climbed back up to the old town taking a different path of again over 200 steps. A glass of wine doesn't come easy here. Somehow we were back where we started our day in Porto. A quick stop at a Farmacia for anti-inflammatory cream and drugs for Achilles tendinitis (guess who) and then we went back to our hotel which is a very quaint, tall old building overlooking a wide boulevard and city square. The hotel elevator only goes from floors two to five and we are on the sixth floor. Interesting. A very clean room but super small. This is a very particular hotel. If you wash your clothes in their rooms, you get charged an extra half day's room rate.

After a quick shower we headed out again to meet Eman and John for dinner. We all wandered and wove our way in, around and down more twisty cobblestone streets until we were once again back at the waterside and the rows of restaurants. By chance, we ended up choosing one that also featured traditional Portuguese Fado music. As we were seated the waiter tried to explain to us about Fado music and something about silence. Hungry, we just nodded our heads and sat down, eager to eat. We were immediately served a complimentary Port (it is called Porto for a reason) and settled in to dine. When the Fado music started, two guitarist and a singer, it finally clicked what the server had been tellling us. Apparently this haunting melancholy style of music must be sung to a silent, respectful audience as the chatty dinner audience was informed, reminded and reprimanded more than a few times.

A bedtime cup of tea and a capuchinno finished off the evening. A good day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John and Eman

 

 

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Agueda to Oliveira de Azeméis. May 17 - 36km*

"Are we having fun yet?"

Today Dayton and I were sitting in the hotel lobby before starting out for the day when, out of the blue, Dayton said that he was thinking about my blog and how too much of it seems to focus on complaints. He thought that anyone reading my blog would think we weren't having fun. We looked at one another.........and started to laugh.

Once the gales of laughter had subsided and the tears dried up, I noted how our hotel had redeemed itself this morning. We might have had a toasty room due to a broken air conditioning system but the breakfast they served this morning was exceptional; fresh fruit, croissants, rolls, bacon, hot hardboiled eggs as well as scrambled eggs, platters of cold meats and cheeses, hot coffee and tea and chilled orange juice, yogurt and fresh goat cheese and a variety of cakes and pastries. We tried to do it justice.

Well sated, we set out to Albergaria and started walking along a shaded path through the woods. An hour later and for the rest of the day we were mainly on quiet asphalt roads going from village to village. At one point a couple of young ladies bicycled up to us and we stopped to have a quick Camino exchange of pleasantries, "Where are you from? Where did you start? How far are you going? etc. etc. ". These two ladies were from Brazil, had started in Fatima and were cycling to Santiago. Their bikes looked brand new and both the bikes and ladies looked well equipped. The bikes had handle bar clips to hold their cell phones, walkie talkies were clipped to the front straps of their backpacks, small panniers were in the back racks and the ladies themselves were in custom designed personalized biking shirts with machine stitched patches showing a flag of Brazil, a Camino de Santiago emblem as well as their names. They also had a support vehicle with a mom and a boyfriend travelling on ahead. They were heading to Porto today but already questioning their ambition as it was so hot.

By 10:00am the heat was pretty intense. Going through the villages we were greeted by the most tantalizing aromas coming from one house or backyard after another. Men were doing what men all over the world enjoy doing and take as their domain, barbecuing. One man had two huge chickens on his little spit and a couple of metres on we came across a group of men supervising and testing a huge roasted pig. It takes a village. At the same time the baker in the pasteleria was working overtime and in overdrive trying to keep up with the demand for huge round loaves of bread. It was evident that Portugal was feasting well this Sunday evening.

We walked for a couple of more hours and about 12:00pm Dayton stopped and pointed out a town in the distance saying that this was our destination for the day. The town was on a high hill, we were not. It was up and down and up and down for another hour before we got to the town of Oliveira de Azeméis. Oliveira de Azeméis is a town of about 12,000 and today every single person in this town and every surrounding town was out in the streets enjoying the biggest street festival we have ever seen. Every street was lined with stalls of baked goods, jams, pottery, and most of all pig roasts. This is the twentieth year this town has had a festival recalling the last days of the nineteenth century and the early days of the twentieth century and the dress of most of the locals reflected that. So did the prices. When we finally selected a place to sit down and have Dayton try some of the local flavours, we were a little hesitant about the prices; €20.00 to €30.00 for a plate of pork. One of the servers who spoke English enlightened us on how and what to order and clarified the prices. The prices were listed in 'reis' the currency of the nineteenth century which meant that what we thought was €30.00 was actually only €3.00. A platter of a variety of pork (slices, sausage and some parts and pieces I don't even want to know about) was €10.00 and we got a jug of wine and one of water, a basket of a variety of Portuguese breads and a bowl of olives totalling €15.00. The gentlemen who had served us and chatted with us explaining the festival and local food and customs also chose to serve us one final local drink, a shot of some potent liquer. My foot is feeling better now.

What an absolutely fabulous afternoon, so interesting and fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mealhada to Agueda May 16 - 26kms

An early morning walk through a still sleeping town and a quiet countryside has to be one of the best ways to start a day. So peaceful; a gentle awakening, physically and mentally for sure. Nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other and listen to the birds and the roosters waking up. It seemed that all the cafe owners were finding a lazy way to wake up this Saturday morning as well as all the cafe stops we expected were still closed. We seemed to be out and about before anything was getting going anywhere. We were before the farmers' market opened, before the cafes opened and before a promising village festival started but also before the heat got really intense.

We arrived in Agueda right at noon hour, found the tourist office to ask for some help and then headed to our rather modern hotel, a multi-storied hotel which seems anachronistically out of place in this charming old town. However, we are not complaining about a spacious room, a hairdryer and a prepaid Sunday breakfast. We did pass up this morning's prepaid breakfast at Hotel Oasis because we want to get ahead of the heat but we have other plans for tomorrow.

Dayton and I have decided that, in order to spend some time enjoying the city of Porto,we are going to combine a couple of the suggested stages to get to Porto a day earlier and spend two nights there. This means we are going to have to be a little creative about how we attack the next two days. We have over 38kms tomorrow to get to our next reserved stop and then 43.7kms to get to Porto. Our John Brierley guide book also strongly cautions that the walk into Porto is one long slog featuring lots of highway walking through heavy industrial areas. That description does not scream 'Camino' to us. Ergo,our creative solution might involve a bus or a cab somewhere along the way. Do not judge.

This town is situated on a lovely river and the walk over the bridge with the old buildings in the background was quite picturesque. We stopped for a quick photo op. On our past caminos we have brought two cameras exactly the same so that we could share chargers and an extra common battery. The continual dampness and rain on our last Camino pretty well pooched our cameras so they had to be replaced. This time we acted fiscally responsible and only purchased one camera for Dayton and decided I could use my new iPhone for my photos. Not once have I felt deprived of not having a camera and not once have I felt compelled to take my iPhone out of my pack to take photos. It is not that there have not been lovely shots to take but one camera recording this journey is sufficient. That is why most of 'our' photos are of 'me'. So far my feelings about this Portuguese Camino is that the people, the accommodations and the food surpass the sights.

Once again we lucked into a great place for lunch after, once again, being unable to find the ones recommended by the hotel concierge. Go figure. Dayton had a full course meal of fish, potatoes and cabbage and the chef went overboard to make sure my salada mixta was a full meal with tomatoes, onions, oranges, carrots and apples. So good or muita bom.....I have now increased my Portuguese vocabulary twofold. I still need to increase my vocabulary a bit more though as we still have a bit of miscommunication ordering. We retired to an outdoor cafe after lunch for a tea and a white wine. The server kept nodding her head yes every time we said vinho branca (white wine) and then we were served tea and a Super Bock beer. Dayton cooperatively said nothing, accepted it and drank it. We are flexible that way. I am not always a fan of dining al fresco with bugs and all that but boy I could live in a climate where you could enjoy these outdoor squares with their relaxing cafes.

As we were dodging traffic to get to our restaurant I was noting that the crosswalks in Portugal seem to indicate to drivers that they can stop for pedestrians - if they want to. When they don't, we do look a little comical. There we are battered and backpacked trying to cross the street when a car speeds towards us. Invariably, the eyes widen, the heart beat goes into overdrive, the arms start pumping and flapping but the legs just keep plodding on - da dum da dum da dum. There is no way the legs can speed up. "All sound and fury signifying nothing".

 

 

 

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