A pretty easy second-to-last day of walking, apart from the heat. We just  ambled along for most of the day, stopped at the Cafe Esperon near Carrecedo for a medicinal Coca Cola for Greg, and a lemon ice tea and tortilla espagnol (potato tortilla) for me, then stopped at regular intervals after that for much-needed shade breaks, drinks of water and food.

We took our usual quantities of water – 2 x 500ml bottles for me, 2 x 750ml bottles for Greg, but had been relying on getting more at a cafe at the 12km mark at San Miguel. That didn’t work out for us as it closes between 2 – 5pm, and we walked past at 2.20, however there was a mains water fountain about 1km further on, and then another 5 fountains within the next 4km!

Tonight we’re staying at Padron, which is significant as this is where Saint James Santiago first preached the word of the Lord. So Padron was important during James’s life, and Santiago has become important after his death.

So …how does it feel that we’re now so close to our destination? Exciting, a relief nd a feeling of … finally! We’ll let you know tomorrow.

Hot water fountain in front of the hotel

Padron (click for larger version)

Padron Rio Sar (click for larger version)

It was cold and cloudy, but like yesterday it never really rained for longer than a couple of minutes. Enough to make us drag out the wet weather gear, walk for a while and get hot, then take it all off again.

There are more pilgrims on the road now, as we get closer to Santiago. Interestingly, many of them feel the same way about pilgrim albergues as we do – tried that, not doing it again.

We have arrived in Valenca early enough to be able to spend some time walking around the Fortaleza, the old fortress on the Rio Minho, which marks the northern border between Portugal and Spain.

Valenca and the hills of spain in the distance

We did a total of 20kms on cobblestones, then the remainding 6km on sealed roads, through the villages of Mosteiro, Vilar, Giao and finally to our destination, Vilarinho. We had been somewhat unexcited about staying at Vilarinho as our guidebook listed a pilgrim alburgue as the only accommodation. The thought of sharing a room with up to 15 other people, at least one of whom snores, sleeping in bunk beds and being woken by the endless rattle of plastic bags at 5am just isn’t our idea of what a camino is all about, so we were delighted to meet a gentleman at Mosteiro who told us about his ‘hostel’ in Vilarinho. It’s actually a self-contained unit at the back of his house with space for up to 4 people. There is a double bedroom, kitchen-loungeroom with another double bed and a shared bathroom. 10 euros per person including breakfast, and there are also washing and drying facilities.

So we were pretty happy about finding some nice accommodation, and after the horrors of the last 4km of the day, we needed it! We had to walk on a road that was barely 2 lanes wide, with absolutely no margin at all. Stone walls on either side, fairly busy road that we had to keep on crossing to avoid meeting oncoming traffic on blind corners. I’m amazed that the camino route hasn’t been changed to quieter, safer roads – if today had been my first day of walking a camino, it might also have been my last – really scary walking conditions.

Scary road no room stuck between two stone walls. Trucks semis and cars speeding along this road

After a nice breakfast we packed up and headed out, down the road to Pingo Doce (a supermarket) for some fresh bread for lunch. We are walking to Porto on a Saturday and Sunday, and have learnt from experience that not many places are open Saturday, and even less on Sunday, so extra supplies are required. It was cold overcast, but it was not raining , so it was a meander through the suburbs, including another long steep hill, until we found a bar open (at the 4km mark) where we stopped in the warm for some drinks and rest. It was then our favourite highway the N-1. However because it was Saturday there was less traffic on the N-1, and a lot less trucks. We left the N-1 at Malaposta where we walked along the old Roman Via XVI road, with a short stretch of original Roman road.

Through long stretches of villages including Ferradal and Vergada. At Vergada we stopped for an icecream to think. We had a 5km stretch to Grijo, and then we had to backtrack east about 1.5km to get to the only hotel in the area. We pulled out our GPS and worked out it would be only 3.3km to go straight up the road to the hotel rather than the long detour. After 30 minutes it finally started raining. It rained for about four minutes and then stopped. We made it to the slightly run-down Residencial  Sobreiro Grosso. Tomorrow we have 18.3km to walk into Porto.

Tiled church

A piece of original Roman Road

Not a lot to say about only walking 10kms, other than that it was a pleasant stroll – all on paved roads, we crossed over the railway line numerous times, wandered through a few villages and we’re staying at Sao Joao da Madeira (St John of the forest), an industrial town of around 20,000. The town looks very modern, but is of Roman origin, and is famous for its hat and shoe manufacturing. We’re staying at the AS Hotel Sao Joao, which is on the main town square, and is excellent value at 25 euros including breakfast

Climbing up the very steep hill

Roadside seats for pilgrims (also called a power pole)

Shopping with rucksacks

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

Side note: we wanted to buy a small tube of sunscreen when we were at the shopping centre. We had looked at the small supermarkets in the towns and villages we walked through, but hadn’t been able to find any. And no wonder – the cheapest, smallest tube or bottle we could find was 13 euros! Almost $20 for a 100ml tube. It’s very surprising, because a lot of Portuguese people are quite fair, but I guess there isn’t the problem of skin cancers here that there is in Australia.

We spent the morning wandering around a bit lost at times – getting back onto the Camino route was tricky, and then we missed a yellow arrow and a road that used to be on the map has disappeared or been incorporated into a new section of main road. We ended up walking on the 4-lane main road for a bit, then clambered up an embankment (not easy to do with a rucksack trying to drag you back down the slope) and found those yellow arrows again.

We stopped at the first cafe in the next village, Cernache, but it was closed due to the death of the owner. Some little old ladies assembled in the street told me all about it – and I’m pretty sure they said that the owner died whilst doing the Macarena, just keeled over on the dance floor. When your number’s up and all that ….

Most of the day’s walking was on sealed roads, which is always tough on the feet, but we did do a nice section of bush track walking at around lunchtime, and found a shady, grassy spot under some fir trees.

Our first view of Coimbra (former capital of Portugal in the 12th century, now a university town, population 160,000) was one of  the most breathtaking town vistas we can remember. We walked down a cobbled street from Santa Clara, via the Santa Clara convent, crossed the Mondego River and into the town of Coimbra. We’re staying here for 2 nights.

Saturday afternoon at a cafe

Coimbra

Down the zig zag road

Over the bridge into Coimbra

We climbed out of Ansiao which gained us 100 metres in altitude. We passed the first of many pine trees that had been tapped for their sap. It was a quiet country road through Netos where there were several new houses that had been built. Then we went cross country on a track through pine and eucalyptus forest to a cafe/service station at Freixo, where we consumed yet another portuguese tart (or two). Then we left the road for farm tracks that became rtacks through old walled olive groves. We are not qute sure why there are all these walls seperating the olive groves, but they look fairly old.

We climbed upwards in the warm afternoon until we reached Alvorge, where there were a cafe and mini-mercado (small store), but they all looked closed.  It was then a steep decent into a valley that contained a old lavadero. We had passed a lavadero before, it is a community clothes washing place, which has a creek feeding over stone washboards so you can wash your clothes. No longer used now of course.

We had to detour a couple of sections of the path that were completely flooded, and then climbed again up a hill covered in low scrub. It was fairly warm, and there was not much shade when we stopped for a late lunch.We decended into Ribera de Alcalamouque, where as usual there seem almost no-one around, passed another abandoned Qunita (farm) and headed north passing small patches of grape vines that just could not produce much income. If grape growers in Australia cannot make money out of 10 hectares of grape vines, we cannot see how these grape vines that are about the size of a house block make any money.

We arrived in Rabacal, to find the only accomodation in town closed. How it works is you need to ring someone in town, and they come and collect your money and open it up for you. We didn’t even get to ring anyone up, someone drove past stopped, asked us (insign language) if we wanted to sleep, and organised it all.

Pine sap collecting

Trying not to get wet feet