If you’ve been on my blog posts for a while, you will be well aware of the disastrous time I had on my Camino de Santiago walking the French Way. My feet were bad, my brain was worse and I was disappointed that I didn’t really get the experience I was hoping for, although I got the opportunity to explore our stops each day and people-watch to my heart’s content. I also got to see my friend Rachael complete the entire walk which was pretty amazing.
My work colleague (and now travel buddy), Jyai told me she was going to the midwifery conference in Lisbon and was keen to walk some of the Portuguese Coastal Camino. I immediately said “let’s do it” without a thought for how things worked out last time or for the words I said to Rach last time - “I just don’t think walking from town to town is for me.”
We have 9 stages planned over 12 days walking from Vila Praia de Ancora through A Guarda, Oía, Baiona, Vigo, Arcade, Pontevedra, Caldas del Reí, Padron and finally into Santiago.
I wish I could say I was confident and had trained hard, but unfortunately my training was sidetracked by two osteo-arthritic knees that required some management four weeks out from my trip. As a result they don’t have many miles in them, but they do have more support and strength than before. So now the proof will be in the pudding.
The coastal walk is a lot flatter than the French way and of course not nearly as long as my last venture at reaching Santiago. Today we began with an optional route that was dependant on how we were feeling at just over halfway.
The first 8km was along coastal paths and through small sea-side villages as we made our way to Caminha, where we would need to take a ferry across the river Minho, which is the border between Portugal and Spain. The regular pilgrim ferry is closed on Mondays, and me being me, I was a bit worried about not being able to get across, so I spent some time googling options and finding a suitable alternative. Paid my fare online, joined the What’s App channel and started to get Google map pings on where to meet for our crossing.
We had given ourselves two and a half hours to find our way there and made it in plenty of time, even with a stop to stamp our passports at a local laundromat in Modello.
Not sure how many seats the boat had, but there were at least 10 on the boat - we all had life jackets to wear and squeezed into a tinnie to cross the river and the border. Spoke with a couple of other passengers - two best friends from Canada who were also walking - but much longer distances each day!
Safely delivered to the Spanish side (A Pasaxe), we had a quick stop to eat and manage foot repair and then away we went for the rest of the stage - along the longer, but flatter path.
We made it into A Guarda just before 1pm and dropped our bags at our accommodation for the night - a former convent of San Benedicto, beautifully renovated into hotel rooms. This one was a bit of a luxury stay but one I was keen on - our first stay on the French way in Roncesvalle was also part of an old monastery.
We spent a couple of hours down near the beach just recovering and waiting for our rooms to be ready, had a lovely late lunch at a local restaurant and after a short rest had a walk around the main part of the town.
I continued my walk through town along the waterfront and back along the beachfront, then looked around the church next door and now am firmly tucked up in the hotel lounge enjoying a tawny port and a bit of local pastry. Next stop will be the convent museum and finally to bed to rest my weary bones.
Phoebe - one of my other bucket list items was to walk any stage of any Camino, so now I’ve ticked off another one for the year. The others are all so much easier!
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