Day 16 Agueda to Albergaria-a-Velha

16km – but somehow we still managed to stretch it out and take most of the day to do it. Knowing that we had a short distance to cover, we took our time over breakfast and packing up, so we left the Residencial Celeste at around 10am.  First stop was the Pingo Doce supermarket 1km up the road to stock up on essential supplies of cakes, bread rolls and snacks. Then we spent most of the morning walking through long villages with lots of closed-up shops and houses, although we did stop at a very good cafe at the end of Trofa, just before we crossed the N1 at traffic lights! A bit more wandering through side roads, then back across the N1 and down onto a Roman road and bridge which date back to the 2nd Century.

The section after the Roman bridge has been altered – previously the Camino looped under the main road a couple of times and crossed the Rio Vouga via a side-bridge. However, a section of that bridge has collapsed, so the yellow arrows now point straight along the N1 and over the main bridge.

It was warm today, with not much shade for most of theday, but this afternoon we did walk through eucalyptus plantations for a while. On the outskirts of Albergaria-a-Velha, there is a large, modern supermarket – Intermarche. We wandered in there for a while to take advantage of their air-conditioning, and spent a long time browsing their refrigerated and frozen goods! We did buy some cold drinks which we consumed immediately.

Tonight we are staying at the Casa de Almeda in Albergaria-a-Velha – the first place we have stayed at on this trip which has shared bathroom facilities rather than an en-suite bathroom. Nice place, though and there’s a restaurant just downstairs where we’ll have dinner.

We are now halfway to Santiago.

Mud brick, adobe house, we have passed many in the last 2 days

A lavadero for washing clothes

The broken bridge that forced us to detour (click for a larger version)

Roman road and bridge from the 2nd century