23 K (13.8 miles)
I don’t remember Porto being this loud and crowded the last time we were here on a Friday/Saturday earlier in September. I looked at pictures from 2016 and the streets were far more empty. Something must be happening this weekend. We’re looking forward to the quiet of the Camino.
What would you think if I told you we slept in the train station? There were few reasonable centrally located accommodations available this weekend, another clue regarding the hoards of tourists in town. So, we stayed at a place called the Passenger Hostel, built into part of the station, a Unesco World Heritage site, a beautiful structure circa 1896. It has both shared and private rooms. A “5 star” hostel, it features local artists and boasts its green status. From the lounge:
The 18 foot ceilings allow for triple bunks in the dorms. Ours was a private room with a shared bath. Oh yes, the room came with two sets of earplugs, an acknowledgement of the street noise. View from our room:
Included breakfast was at 8:00a.m. And then we hit the road. I love walking out of big cities and watching the gradual change in landscape. We walked along the Douro River and turned right at the ocean.
That turn put us directly into the teeth of a gale. Think sheets of rain and strong wind. It came on so quickly I had an earful of rain before I could unpack my fancy hiking umbrella, its fibreglass ribs recovering easily from being blown inside out.
We’ll be turning off the coastal route tomorrow, but today was a repeat of our last Camino. Back then we stopped for pizza on the beach, when C was baptized by seagull, if you know what I mean.
Today we remembered a town where there were several blocks of restaurants, with charcoal grills in front, specializing in fresh fish. Taking a break from the rain, we had our main meal of the day. Walking in the door there was a selection of fish on ice, so fresh one was still flopping a fin.
We ordered our fish and the server brought them to us for our approval. What a delicious experience! The people next to us had 18 huge sardines:
while we had sole and salmon:
with a side of grilled Padrón peppers.
After lunch we managed to get separated when I had to backtrack to fetch a hiking pole I lost when distracted by my inside out umbrella. We caught up at our destination, another 13k away.
The storm started to break in the last 2k:
I found it comforting that there must be some sort of muscle memory in this kind of adventure. After a few years it was easy to get back into the rhythm of the walk. 23k was pushing it for the first day, especially given the weather, but a hot shower and bed make it much better. With such a big lunch we had backpack snacks for dinner.
Thinking back, this probably was the toughest day we’ve had in our three Caminos. And it was perfectly flat, on a mixture of boardwalk and pavement. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Boa noite from Portugal.
Comments