Travel

Today was a gloriously short day. I only walked about 12 miles, which took about 4 hours. Being on the central route there are many more pilgrims which is really important to me.

First thing this morning I met several pilgrims at second breakfast and then walked along seeing pilgrims all along the way.

Tonight I am staying at Casa Fernanda, a Camino Portugues institution. Maria Fernanda was the first female to host pilgrims on the Camino. She is amazing.. She is sold out every day. People are so disappointed that they cannot get a reservation. I emailed her 3 months ago.

Tomorrow I have a long walk so it should be interesting. Fernanda tells me I am crazy.

Today I transferred from the Camino Portuguese Coastal to the Camino Portuguese Central route. This was a planned move since I wanted to walk up the coast on the first day to avoid the long walk through the industrial part of Porto and of course I really was looking forward to meeting my friend Fernando, who I met last year walking the Camino Primitivo.

Today’s walk was very interesting. It starts off following a line of 990 pillars of an aqueduct that was constructed by a monistary to bring water. I spent the first few hours walking along the aqueduct before turning east to travel towards the central route. If I had not had my app from Wise Pilgrim with its GPS I would have been lost. The markings on this part of the route are almost nonexistent.

The transition took about 3.5 hours of walking an was about 10 miles. It was mostly road walking, which is not really that bad except here you are walking along a road with large stone walls on either side. Fortunately there was very little traffic as these are country roads.

The second part of my day was to walk up the central route to Barcelos. I did a bad job of calculating just how far I was going to walk today. In fact I walked 22 miles. Another crazy day. I have talked with so many people that have walked the Camino Portuguese. Most all if them commented on the cobblestone roads and how they hurt their feet. I did not really understand, but now I do. The cobbles are uneven and like walking on large gravel. It does not hurt but it works your feet over pretty good.

The entire day was mostly road walking with a very few paths through the eucalyptus forests. I am hoping that the next few days are more path walking and less road walking. We will see.

Tomorrow is a short day. Only 18km’s which is less than 12 miles. It should only take me about 4 hours.

Sometimes I make choices that are not the smartest. Today I choose to walk 23 miles in one shot. I walked out of Porto this morning at 7:45 and off I went.

The walk today was actually really beautiful. For the start I walked along the Duro river as it finishes its path to the Atlantic Ocean. The Duro comes all the way from Spain and eventually empties into the Atlantic at a little town call Foz (pronounced fosh). I had the opportunity to walk with my friend from Matoshinos Fernando with whom I walked the Camino primitivo last year. He met me in his town and we walked for about an hour or so together. It was great to get to see him again and even better to get some local knowledge. He told me that Foz is one of the most expensive places to live in Portugal. I get that because it is absolutely stunning. It fronts the Atlantic Ocean with a wide boardwalk. As I was walking along I was saying to myself, not this is the place to live.

Once I reached the Atlantic the walk was mostly on a boardwalk that stretched for almost 18 miles along the coast line. There were places where it was in disrepair and some where it did not exist at all. I walked in the sand. That was a good reminder that I have no desire to walk a beach Camino. It is very hard to walk along the sand.

My destination today was Vila do Conde a beautiful city along the Atlantic coast. It is idillic. All day I kept thinking that this was just like walking along the coast in the Carmel or Monterrey area. It was cool breezy and there was a little rain, but not much.

I am staying in a youth hostil tonight. This is a different experience and it is crowded on the Camino so I have had to make reservations at every stop. We will see. Anyway tomorrow a will walk inland to Barcelos. Not many transfer from the Coastal route to the Central route but that is what I am going to do.

As I write this I have 51,478 steps today and a total of 25.04 miles. I scarfed down a pizza and a beer and frankly that won’t come anywhere here tipping the scales. The Camino diet is real and I love it.