Walking the Camino in Portugal

Yesterday afternoon at 5.30pm, we walked up the steps to the south door of the Santiago Cathedral, which was used by medieval pilgrims travellingthe Camino Portugues and is the oldest doorway in the Cathedral, dating back to the 11th century. We touched the door with our foreheads, and our Camino was over. It has taken us 2 attempts, 22 months, nearly 1300kms, 64 days of walking, a couple of dozen blisters and lots of Voltaren tablets.

We had intended to walk another 4 days and 80kms to Finisterre (‘The End of the World’), on the west coast, but I was somewhat less than enthusiastic, and Greg kind of lost interest after learning that in fact it’s not the westernmost point of the Iberian peninsular. So it seemed like a bit of a waste if we both didn’t really want to do it. Greg’s shoes probably don’t have another 80km of tread in them, and his feet or ankles won’t cope well if he keeps on wearing them …… he’s planning a whole post on ‘Why not to wear lightweight shoes to do a Camino’ at some later stage. So instead, we’re flying to Barcelona this evening for a few nights, followed by a few nights in Madrid, then home early next week.

The stuff that hung off our rucksacks has been removed, our walking poles are packed inside, I have thrown out my yucky socks and some clothes that I didn’t really like anyway (but they dried fast, so were good to walk in), and we have changed from pilgrims into ageing backpackers. We spent some time this afternoon sitting at a cafe which is on the route to the Cathedral. We watched the passing parade of people – locals, tourists and pilgrims. The pilgrims who were walking the last few hundred metres of their Camino were such a varied bunch – some walked very fast, some limped, and some almost floated past us. I hope they all felt as happy and relieved to be (almost) finished as we felt yesterday.

And now, here are a few words I prepared earlier. I actually wrote most of the following back in 2010, but didn’t get to use it then.

Thank you:

• To our family and friends who read this blog, left comments and emailed us while we walked
• Barbara and Bryan, for first telling us about the Camino and igniting the spark
• Our parents, Sam and Brianna, and my brother Phil, for keeping an eye on our place and ‘doing stuff’ for us while we were away.
• The guy with the yellow spray paint can, for those arrows which were often our only guiding light, and which were the difference between us staying on track and ending up hopelessly lost. Greg’s GPS helped a lot too.
• The pilgrims and the friends of the Camino we met along the way, for sharing their stories, and for listening to ours.
• Greg, whose kind words and actions gave me wings when my legs felt like lead. Muchas gracias mi amigo. Thanks for sharing your Caminos with me, and for being part of mine. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t have done them without you.

To future pilgrims who stride, walk, stumble, limp and hobble in our footsteps, we wish you all a BUEN CAMINO

22km. We were up and out the door before 9am, mainly because it’s rare for breakfast to be included in the price of a hotel room, whereas in Portugal it was almost always included. Doesn’t really matter to us as we usually carry some food that we can eat (this morning it was cupcakes), I just have to walk a few kms to get my first coffee of the day. So we walked through Redondela and its outskirts, plus a smaller village, Cesantes, then stopped at the Jumboli Pension and cafe 5km from where we stayed last night. For anyone wanting to do a longer stage than Porrino – Redondela, the Jumboli would make the Porrino stage an acceptable 19kms.

We spent the morning walking close to the Ria de Vigo inlet, a very picturesque, calm body of water with villages dotted along the other side of the bay. A mix of quiet roads and forest tracks for most of the day, apart from one short stretch along the main road north, the N-550. Our guide book made a big deal out of how dangerous this bit of road was, so we donned our fluoro vests and took a deep breath. Actually, compared with the horror stretches out just before Vilarinho and Barcelos, today’s  bit was fine, with at least a metre of margin for us to walk on. We’re a bit puzzled that the guide book doesn’t pay more attention to the dangers of the earlier stages out of Porto.

We reached the town of Arcade at around lunchtime, so even though it has a Michelin recommended restaurant, Restaurant Arcadia, we decided to give it a miss (ha, ha!) and got bread and ham from the local supermarket to eat by the river.

We have seen at least 10 pilgrims today, almost more than we saw the whole time we walked in Portugal.

The most common building material around here is pink granite. Anyone who has either installed or even just priced a granite benchtop in Australia may shed a few tears when they learn that whole houses are built out of it here, together with fences, stone walls, paving and park benches & tables in council picnic areas.

This afternoon we resurrected our practice of soaking our feet. We did it often on our last camino, but this time it hasn’t been as easy to find water. Now that we’re in Spain, there are a lot of water fountains. We’re very wary of drinking from them, but the water is great for a mid-afternoon foot soak. We do usually do it at the end of the day, in our hotel room.

Pontevedra is a large town, population  75,000. We’re staying at the Hotel Ruas in the old section, and just from walking to the hotel, there seems to be plenty to see and do here – lots of history, museums, cafes and a walking tour around the historic centre.

Bridge at Arcade

Yet another overgrown spanish rest area. We have seen this many times before in Spain. They get money to develop a rest area. They build it, and it is then abandoned. The bins are never emptied. The grass in never cut. Eventually the rest area becomes completley overgrown and unusable. This rest area was developed in 2010. In 2012 its unusable.

La Peregrina, 18th century dedicated to pilgrims (click for a larger version)

Vigo Inlet (click for larger version)