Month: September 2023

Todays’s walk was an uninspiring 27K walk on either sidewalk or cobbles. We left Porto just before 07:00 and saw some new peregrinos along the way but not many. We did meet an older Portuguese man going through one town that walked with us a little bit and was very kind.

Around midday we stopped under a shaded area where another peregrino was resting. Luiz is from Porto and this is his first walking Camino. Previously he biked it and he was intrigued to see how walking it would be.

Sometime around 3:00 pm we got to Vilarinho (the town that fun forgot). Our albergue which is a small mix of private rooms and a bunk room. Beth and I are staying in a private room today which should help getting out in the morning without worrying about disturbing others.

The morning routine consists of taping our feet to prevent blisters and smothering our toes in Vaseline. We sleep in the clothes we are going to walk in. Then load the backpack which is a compression bag of our clothes and a clear plastic bag of toiletries or medical stuff.

We stopped at a mini Mercado on the way in to be able to make sandwiches as we weren’t sure of the food situation in this one horse town. We will be having ham, salami and cheese on a PORTUGUESE ROLL in Portugal!

“When you follow the crowd you lose yourself. When you follow your soul, you lose the crowd….”

We started our rest day by climbing the streets of Porto to go to the laundromat…..good times.

Afterwards, we made our way down to the Se Cathedral to see inside.

Turned out there was a tower we could climb which had outstanding views of Porto.

We then decided to make our way down to the touristy river walk.

Then we had to climb our way back up to where our hotel was and unsurprisingly getting a bit lost as well. Overall, we walked over 5 miles by 1:00 pm. We thought we should give our feet a break and take a nap.

“Wanderlust: a strong desire for or an impulse to wander or travel and explore the world”.

We went for a stroll to find something for dinner and bumped into Andrew and Jessie (Australia) and had a glass of wine and got caught up. Neither one of us has seen a peregrino in days.

Thank you all for your comments. We need the inspiration and laughs to keep us moving forward.

Today we walked a hilly 28.5K to get to Porto. We got started at 07:00. The first 8K was walking on small 2 foot sidewalks with the wall of a home on one side and cars buzzing by us through small streets with blind curves on the other.

Once the morning rush hour was over we settled into a nicer walk with a mix of streets and woods. Our goal today was to manage our breaks better as we have more options with cafe availability now. We took breaks every 1.5 hours to help our feet and it helped.

The cobbles really beat up our feet.

We experienced the bread delivery guy again. An unmarked white van comes into town leaning on his horn then parks and women come out of their homes where there is a lot of exchanging of cash for bags of bread. It’s like a drug deal going down and then onto the next village.

It seemed to take forever to get to the Porto bridge at the end of the day but was such a cool city once we got there.

We stopped by the Se Cathedral on our way to our hotel. The city is swarming with tourists.

We went out to replace clothes we lost and again trying to find a place to eat. We got lost both times. . This city is a maze of streets running in every directions with hills everywhere. By the time we figure this place out we’ll be gone.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it – Ferris Bueller

We had a community dinner with the albergue owner Paulo, his wife, Anya (Holland), and a cyclist Kristen (Germany). Kristen is cycling the Camino in the opposite direction. We all had the best night sleep so far. We got started a bit late at 7:15..

Today’s walk is a hilly 26K day. Many steep climbs today. We did run into a bunch of peregrinos we know at cafe stops. Those stops are necessary for us to get off our feet and also to have some laughs.

You find shade wherever you can find it. We stopped off at the public washing station in one town to take a break. We are seeing more of these now.

We finished our walk around 3:45 and we are smashed. The last 5K really was a grind. No accommodations in this area but a hotel. We prefer albergues but when you’re really beat up it’s nice to have your own room. We are also finding out now we are missing some sock liners and my shirt. All the clothes were taken off the clothes line when it rained 2 days ago and there were clothes hanging everywhere under cover trying to get dry and we somehow missed them. Lesson learned. We head to Porto tomorrow and will have a rest day which now will turn into a clothes shopping day. Yeah!

“Wherever you go, there you are….Confucius

Last night rained a lot so our laundry never got dried. Yuk.

Then we lost power for hours until someone questioned this and the albergue person in charge said to just flip the circuit breaker. Shouldn’t that be their job?

We were hanging out in the common room with Andrew and Jessie (Australia) and Larry and Monique (Canada) telling old Camino stories. Then Monique goes and gets her ukulele she has in her pack and starts singing songs for us. Slowly more people start coming in and we are having a sing a long. She even played “Country Roads” which was a big hit. Felt fortunate to be apart of it all.

Today’s walk was 23.5K to Casa Catolic in Branca. It rained off and on today but we felt fortunate that we didn’t get caught in a massive deluge that was only a short distance away.

We kept seeing Ilsa (Belgium) today off and on at various cafe stops. She is such a friendly person. It feels good to meet people like this that just enjoy the moment. We also walked quite a bit with Kako (Japan). She is 75 years old and we barely keep up with her. We are pathetic.

There was no point trying to get to the albergue and try to get laundry done again since it was still raining so we found a self service laundromat off of the Camino but close to our albergue. There were a few Portuguese in there when I stripped down to my underwear to get my dirtiest clothes cleaned. I had a clean shirt and pants that I was able to change into right away. Beth did give me stink eye when I dropped my shorts.

There is only a few of us here tonight so it should be a quiet night instead of the hootenanny we had last night. Our bodies are breaking down. Two more long walks until our rest day in Porto.

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience, can never go back to its old dimensions”…..Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

Last night we had dinner with another peregrino who was staying at the Hotel, Teo from Finland. The conversation was interesting and the restaurant people took good care of us. Simple moments like that are what we like about the Camino.

Today we got on the road by 6:15 knowing this will be our longest walk in years.

It was a 26.5 K walk to our bunk house albergue in Agueda. We got caught in a brief rain shower but the walk was flat and the day was cloudy. It was a long, hard day but we got through it.

We met a bunch of new people today on the road… Jean Claude (Switzerland), Maria (Russian from Brooklyn), two young Italian guys, and Kako (Tokyo) … all of them our staying at our same albergue.

We headed into Águeda which has some kind of touristy umbrella theme in town.

We met Kako again in town and walked the final 1.5K climb to Albergue de Peregrinos Santo António.

The normal routine at all albergue stops is shower, hand wash clothes, hang to dry and relax. Tomorrow is another day.

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great”- Tom Hanks in A League if their Own

We finished our day yesterday with a bottle of wine on the rooftop of Hotel Oslo.

Today we will walk 23.1 K to Mealhada. We left at 5:45 to get an early jump on the day. It was dark for the first hour but there was plenty of street lighting leaving the city.

The hardest part of the walk today was having to walk 11.2K to get to our first available restroom stop. There is a saying from Camiño purists that “the Camiño will provide”….well it better start providing closer restroom stops!

One interesting side note… I went into the “Senor” WC and there was only a urinal so I used the “senora” WC and when I came out an old Portuguese lady is telling me in Portuguese that I used the wrong restroom. Then I’m badly pantomiming to her that there is no toilet in the “senor” WC …hysterical.

The good part of the walk today was mostly flat. We met a couple nice guys from Germany and there was also a group of hard core Peregrinos walking in a group from France I think. We spent a lot of time walking through the eucalyptus forest.

One borderline interesting side note is that the Camino to Santiago (yellow arrows) is in the opposite direction from those doing the Camino to Fatima (blue arrows). The Portuguese greeting that we get from most of the people we pass is “Bom Caminho”.

Only had to deal with a few brief rain showers today.

Just like the AP trail, I think we should have a trail name. Mine is “Quasi Modo” (think me, a backpack and a poncho…..nuff said). For Beth, I gave her the trail name “Pinotgrino” (a Peregrino that likes Pinot Grigio…..that’s a no brainer, right?).

Finally made it to Mealhada before the brief thunderstorm. Due to lack of accommodations in this area we are staying at a 2 star hotel above their restaurant and it has AC with a private patio.

All you need to know is that it’s possible…Wolf, Appalachian Trail hiker.

Today was an 18K walk. The amount of ups and downs is surprising us. The cobblestones are taking a toll on our feet now. Hopefully we get some flat walking soon.

We stopped at a shady bench in front of a church to air out our feet. We stopped trying to go in churches since so many were closed when we started our Camiño. I tried to see if it was open and was surprised that it was.

As we got close to Coimbra, we came upon Santa Clara church and convent. Too spent at this point to explore that historic site.

We arrived in Coimbra and are treating ourselves to a stay at Hotel Oslo. We asked for a lunch recommendation and the clerk said “do you want to eat like the Portuguese people do”. How do you say no to that statement? I finally got to try “Chanfana” (Portuguese stew). Without that recommendation, we would have walked right by “Adega Paco do Conde”. We felt a lot better after getting a good meal in us.

No hotel stop is complete without the trekking pole clothesline.

We gathered up whatever strength we had left to climb the stairs to see the Se Velha Cathedral.

Afterwards we made our way down to the Monastery Santa Cruz and Beth lit some candles in memory of our son Brian Stapleton. His birthday was today.

…..everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about, be kind always.

Still not sleeping much. We started earlier today around 0700. We only needed to walk 20.5K today. Beth woke up feeling lightheaded but headed out anyway. She is a strong person.

After 8K we stopped in Rabaçal to get some food and drink which helped a little bit. We met Salvatore and Viviana from Italy throughout the walk today which was nice. They were our bunk mates from last night. Salvatore gave us an apple knowing Beth was struggling today.

A short time later, we rested on a bench in the shade and were joined by 6 ten month old puppies. That helped take our mind off the walk which was surprisingly harder than we thought it would be. Puppy love.

We stopped for lunch and a tour at the Roman ruins of Conimbriga dating back to the first century. It’s the mosaic floors which is the cool attraction here.

We are settled into out Albergue which has 8 bunks but only five of us are here. Salvatore and Viviana are our bunk mates again. Tomorrow a shorter walk to the city of Coimbra.

If you’re mad go for a walk. If you’re still mad, go for another walk….Hippocrates

Tough night’s sleep last night trying to deal with our jet lag. We got upgraded to a private room though. Looks nice right?

We got a late start today which means we’ll still be walking late into the afternoon which isn’t great. We met a girl from Australia and her friend from Argentina when we stumbled down to the breakfast room.

Todays’s 23K walk was a combination of woods, trails, rocky stuff, etc. We enjoyed the various terrain but it was a very lumpy up and down walk that took its toll on us.

We were surprised to meet so many different people so far as we thought this part of the walk wouldn’t have many Peregrinos.

We met Eric and Jen from California while we were sitting off of the trail to rest our feet.

Tonight we are staying in the dorm room at Albergue O Lagareiro. Nice owner (Vítor) great place. So far there are seven of us here.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…..Jack Klingert or maybe it was Lao Tzu.