Camino Portuguese coastal route

 A WELCOME RETURN It seems a little strange to be back on the camino, what with COVID changing the world and how we think and operate now. I excited to walk again, and I’m doing it with Mary Beth who is walking a camino for the first time. I have walked the Portuguese Camino before, 6 years ago, but there are two routes out of Porto, and this time I’m following the coastal route which will be new to me. The Camino has become so important to so many who have walked it, for so so many personal reasons. Some religious, some spiritual, some for fun, and some who have no idea why they are here, but everyone always has answers when they reach the end, I’m really excited and happy to walk this 300 kilometers with Mary Beth, and I think it will have a lasting effect on her, as with me again, when we get to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Compostela is the Latin word for “ field of stars”, a reference to the finding of the tomb of the apostle, “ Saint James the greater”, after being behead...

 It’s always a long day, day one will make or break you, but we made it with some trepidation. Mary Beth was a trooper, I on the other hand, was not that comfortable, it’s been awhile and I forgot I’m older since the last go round. Bom Camino is Portuguese, BUEN Camino is Spanish, it all means “ have a good pilgrimage” A larger than life camino way marker We left Porto, and dropping down to the beach in Matasinhos, we walked into a coffee shop near the harbor, before the devil in Mary Beth got out and took control, once we had finished her morning coffee therapy, we crossed the River Ave via the Ponte Movel opening bridge, that in itself being considered the official start of the coastal way. For about15 miles, we walked the beaches and dunes along a continuous wood boardwalk,  last time I came through here, most of the boardwalk had not been built. I don’t think anywhere else in the world has one this long. Crab traps at the old fishing village Start of the 15 miles of wooden...

 Villa de Conde to Fao Woke this morning feeling 5he same way I do after every first day on the Camino,,,,,sore Got our stuff together and left looking for a coffee shop, on the way we crossed through the town square gardens that were being prepared for a local celebration No sooner had we turned onto the main road through town, some American in broken American came up to us and asked if we spoke English,  we said that that was all we spoke. He was hungry and wanted breakfast, as did we, so we waltzed off and found a coffee shop for “ cafe con letche” and a traditional custard tart. After chatting awhile, Mary Beth and I left for VARZIM, the next town on our way. This turned out to be a larger town where we had to walk through the old city and quaint side streets We pushed on through for about an hour till we got to the sea, and then headed north till we found ourselves back on the beaches and outside the hustle and bustle of the city Finding a quiet beach coffee bar made it t...

 FAO TO VIANA DO CASTILO Today was a challenging day to say the least. The  day was supposed to be a short one to a town on a lake that was shown in the guide book I bought in Porto. This guide book is as useless as tits on a bull, the lake and town don’t even exist., this forced us into a 20 Mile day and nine hours of walking. Today we started out after Kyle because it rained last night and our clothes were still wet. What to do but hang them on the back of our packs and walk them dry. We did not look very tidy, more like a moving garage sale, but it worked. The town of Fao was our start point, but soon arrived in Esposende which seemed deserted because it was a national holiday, something we got to share in later down the road.   We had breakfast in Esposende and then the trail took us into the mountains. We had not done any elevation work yet, but we’re not worried as we were going to stop at the lake for the night, we’ll now we know that doesn’t exist, but still,,,,,,...