A day in Viana do Costelo

A noisy night. Our hotel is just a few metres off one of the main squares in Viana do Costelo. When we walked in yesterday afternoon a large stage was being set up with big banks of amps and speakers. There is some form of two day festival on. We went to bed early as usual but at 10pm a concert in the square started up with very, very loud music. It was so loud our hotel seemed to vibrate. This went on until the music stopped at 2.30am. The music wasn’t even very pleasant to listen to, at least to us. Of course the topic of conversation among the pilgrims at breakfast this morning was the music. A few had gone out at 10 to watch what was going on, but quickly gave up and went back to bed. We have heard it will all happen again tonight.

Breakfast was a little different this morning. Usually it has been a buffet but today breakfast was brought to your table. Fruit juice, fruit (pineapple, banana, orange), bread rolls, cheese and ham, raspberry jam and coffee. Breakfast didn’t start until 8 am and as we have a lazy day, we didn’t go down until after 8.30.and didn’t leave the hotel until after 10. Our guide book said the way out of Viana do Costelo can be confusing so first we went and checked out the route for tomorrow for a few blocks. It seemed to be okay.

High on a hill overlooking the town is a spectacular church, 228 metres above sea level. Fortunately there is a funicular, Elevador de Santa Luzia, and for €3 you get a ride to the top and back. The funicular was 100 years old last year. It is a classic cable car with two cars, one going down pulling the other going up. One track, with a passing bay at the mid point. Each car takes up to 15 passengers.  The church is the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus but the hill is more popularly known as the Mount Santa Luzia. The church was bult between 1904 and 1959 and it looks something like the Sacre-Coeur in Paris.

When we were there a wedding was taking place. It was a Saturday, still the most popular day for a traditional church white wedding. We could go in and stand quietly at the back. The location of the church has commanding views out over Viana do Costelo, the Lima River and harbour, and the Atlantic Ocean. Further up the hill behind the church is the Pousada Viana do Costelo, a luxury hotel built in 1918. Smoking is still a common thing in Portugal. At the church we were sitting in the garden having a coffee when the couple sitting next to us both lit up. We have forgotten just how revolting the smell of cigarette smoke is when you are eating or drinking. We have noticed when we set out in the morning little groups of usually older men gather at cafes for a yarn. I think their standard breakfast is an espresso and a cigarette.

After our meal tonight we went out for a bit of a walk and discovered a lot of the streets have decorative lights. It made it feel like Christmas. Many of the historic buildings also have elaborate lights. The stage is still up just out in the street and it looks like there will be another large dance party later tonight. We spent some of the afternoon in the hotel trying to catch up on some of the sleep we missed last night.

Esposende to Varina do Costelo 24kms
Total distance 87kms
Climb 300m
Total climb 760m

Today we cleared some misconceptions and confusion we had about the Camino Portuguese Routes. There is the Central Route which is miles inland which we are not concerned with. Then there are the Coastal Route, Caminha da Costa, and Seashore Path, Senda Litoral. You do not see the English translations, just the Portuguese, da Costa and Litoral. For the last two days these two have followed exactly the same path on the coast. But this morning as we left Esposende they diverged, and the coastal path we thought we were following went inland and up into some hills. We didn’t see any signage for the litoral route at all. We were a bit confused as to what was going on, but two American ladies with good guide notes assured us we should go inland on the Portuguese Caminha de Costa. It turns out the coastal route is an old route and is called that because it loosely follows the coast and is nearer the coast than the central route. Litoral translates to “of the coast or seashore”, is a new route and religiously (!) follows the coast. This route is all on boardwalks or beaches and has a touristy beach resort vibe. At the end of the day they both converge and have to cross the same bridge entering Viana do Costelo.

We think we made the right choice going inland on the “coastal” route. It was a cloudless, sunny day with no wind, so we would have baked out in the open on the beach. Our route took us through many little villages, past countless churches and chapels, through farm land and vinyards, but best of all a lot of it was through forest which was much cooler out of the sun. We did have to climb two hills, both about 150m vertical height but they had very gentle gradients so didn’t bother us at all.

Between the two hills was a beautiful little river which we crossed on a narrow stone bridge. This looked an inviting spot to go for a swim. The villages also had cafes where we could stop for coffee and lunch. We try to walk for two hours before we start looking for a coffee, but sometimes, depending on where we are, this can stretch to three or even longer. We try to get some lunch after about 5 five hours walking.

We are feeling more and more like being part of the Camino community. We are recognising the same faces each day. Some are staying at the same hotels so we see them at breakfast and dinner. Some we just see many times on the road or at cafes, so you start saying hello and strike up some conversation. Today we walked awhile with two ladies from Vancouver Island Canada so we could talk about our cycling trips in British Columbia and Alberta and our trips to Victoria, Vancouver Island. They also often went to the San Juan Islands where we spent a week a few years ago.

The Suave Mar Hotel we stayed at last night was the most upmarket we have stayed at so far. For breakfast this morning they had all the usual continental breakfast fare I have described before, and they also had more fruit, peaches, water melon etc, and also scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, mushrooms, croquets, hard boiled eggs, cakes, and pain au chocolat. More like a full English breakfast. Our hotel tonight is just off the main square in the centre of the old town Varina do Castelo. It is a small hotel, very comfortable, and downstairs they have a public restaurant. So not far to go for our meal tonight. Where we stay and dinner is included they have what is called a half board menu. So far, olives and bread, soup or salad, fish or meat, dessert from the trolley and still or sparkling water. Sometimes the olives and bread is omitted and wine will be included.

We have now done three 20 plus kilometre days in a row and are feeling pretty good. Tomorrow we have a “rest day” here in Varina do Castelo so we will take it easy, do some washing and look around the town.

These photos from yesterday did not upload, do not know why.

Povoa de Varzim to Esposende 22 km
Total distance 63kms
Climb 440m
Total climb 460m

Today was such a different day to yesterday. A 22km day, which is pretty comfortable for us, but the big difference was no wind. Calm until mid-morning and then just a gentle sea breeze. A warm day but we were out of the sun under a canopy of trees for a couple of hours. We left the hotel in Povoa de Varzim at 8.20am and reached the hotel in Esposende at 2.20pm. Check-in is not supposed to be until 3 pm but maybe they took pity on two old pilgrims. 

Today felt like a real Camino day. Lots of people walking and we got to chat with some of them. Barbara with three guys from Australia, me with ladies from Belgium and Switzerland, and a mother and daughter from California at lunch. 

For the first half of the day we walked along the coast and leaving Povoa de Varzim it was very built up with row upon row of apartment buildings. The most interesting thing we saw was piles of seaweed on the foreshore and these being spread out on the sand dunes to dry. On this part of the coast seaweed harvesting is still viable, the seaweed being used as fertilizer on the farms inland from the coast. Seaweed has been used here in this way since the 14th century. We were on boardwalks again including one that went the full length of a golf course. 

We saw the ruins of old windmills, just the stone towers mostly. We stopped at a little cafe for coffee after about 2½ hours walking. It was a tiny little place out in the country all on its own, called The Mill. It had a small windmill on the roof and a waterwheel inside and it looked like it may have had some accommodation as well. Not sure if the windmill or the water wheel were genuine but they looked the part. When we arrived we were the only customers but by the time we left it was buzzing with pilgrims.

Mid morning there was the option of continuing on the coast or going inland through horticulture farms, mostly vegetables. Without realising it we ended up on the inland route and this was a good option as it was along country lanes and under trees, quite a few of them pines and gums. We also came across blackberries but they were tiny, the size of small peas, and tasteless. Lots of corn fields but also green vegetables and carrots. It didn’t seem to be very mechanised with quite a few people working in the fields. Other than dogs and a few cats we haven’t seen any farm animals, no cattle, no sheep, no poultry, no pigs or horses.

At the village of Fao we came across the three Aussies again at a lovely outdoor cafe and they recommended the French toast and praca baguettes, so we stopped and had some of these with another coffee. It was very pleasant, outdoors under umbrellas in the shade, Four French pilgrims next to us and the Californian mother and daughter asking us what we were having and would we recommend it.

As we entered Esposende the fog came in and created quite a strange atmosphere. We were walking up a narrow estuary and what had been clear on the other side all but disappeared.

The Hotel Suave Mar is quite a grand affair, An older hotel but classy, built around a large, ornate swimming pool.  The restaurant has a large menu and larger drinks choice. Our evening meal is included but there is a separate perigrino menu, similar to last night. Starter of bread, olives etc, entree of soup or salad, main of cod or chicken (with potatoes, not fries) and desert from a trolley. All very nice, but dinner didn’t start till 7.30 and took an hour and a half. Way too late and  slow for tired pilgrims.

Porto to Matosinhos by train 12km
Walk Matosinhos to Povoa de Varzim 25km + 2km diversion +2km tourist route at Villa Conda
Total distance walking 29kms
Climb 20m
Total climb 20m

This turned out to be a long, tough day. Not the distance, although we like to keep our days 20km or less. Not the terrain, it was dead flat. Not the surface, 75% on boardwalk and the rest on pavement or cobble stone. It was the wind. All day we were walking into a 30km/hr wind gusting to 57. This was really energy sapping although it did keep us nice and cool as otherwise it was a 27° day.

We were pretty excited to get walking today. Lisbon and Porto are busy, beautiful, vibrant cities and I loved them both but we are here to walk and we were ready to get away from all the people and follow the peaceful, quiet Camino. We had an early breakfast and by the time we had got the train ride over with it was 8.45am when we started walking from Matosinhos and we didn’t reach our hotel in Povoa de Varzim until 5.10pm.

We also think it was more than a 25km day today. Near Vila Cha early this afternoon there was a large sign saying the boardwalk we were on was closed and there were some temporary signs directing us inland. We were walking with a young Spanish guy and two American women. The diversion took us on suburban streets but then onto a dirt road. The others, glued to the GPS on their phones didn’t like the look of the track and decided to go further inland to find a road. We decided to believe the temporary signs and carried on along the track. There were lots of footprints in the sandy earth so we were pretty confident. It was a delightful walk under trees and out of the wind. Eventually it rejoined the boardwalk and were glad we had not followed the others. This added at least 2km to the beach route.

The other “extra” was at Villa Conda where there was the option of going through the city or the “tourist” route around the coast. Without knowing it we went the latter, where it was windiest and added another 2km. For all that we had a wonderful day, So many interesting things to see. Among them; a lighthouse, an oil refinery, sea weed harvesting, a chapel, an obelisk monument, two working fishing villages, sculptures, art works, Roman Fish pits for salting fish, surf schools, life guards, one person actually swimming, wind surfers, a replica Portuguese caravel, (gosh they were small), azulejos (painted tiles), a huge convent and a castle.

We walked most of the time on boardwalks. The path follows the coast and between the sea and the buildings along the road there is about a 100 metre strip of nature reserve, which is dunes. The path goes through the dunes but is on a timber boardwalk raised about a metre above the sand. This is very easy to walk on. Vastly better than walking on dry sand where you slip and slide, and cobble stones, concrete or pavement which are hard on your feet after a few hours. The timber on the boardwalks is softer then cobble stone and the structure was very slightly springy so was easy on the feet and legs.

Our hotel is in an oldish building but the decor and fittings are very slick and modern. Dinner is included in the tarrif and we were given a voucher to a very modern restaurant about 30 metres away. The meal was a choice of salad or vegetable soup, halibut fish or meat with salad and fries, fruit salad or trifle with cream, red or white wine, coffee. An excellent meal but we were so tired it was a struggle to eat and we thought the wine was going to knock us out.

We must be tired as we had a laugh when we came back to our room after dinner. We have balcony and there are two layers of sliding doors with about a hundred mm gap between them. We thought this must be for acoustic reasons, like double glazing. When we came to pull the curtains there was only a thin net type curtain. We thought this must be all there is, but it didn’t matter because it was dark outside. Later I was playing around with a bank of buttons beside the bed when an aluminium roller shutter came down between the two sliding doors giving us total blackout.

We are tired but happy this evening. One of the nice things about today was that there were dozens of other pilgrims along the way. We didn’t get to make any new friends but said high and a brief chat with a few. It is nice to feel part of a community, all with one purpose, to get to Santiago de Compostela.

Two typical tourists today.

No real plan for the day, just to go out and see some of what Porto is offering.  We left a bit later to miss the rush hour on the Metro. The Station we use to get to the historic centre is the Sao Bento station which is also the main suburban train station for Porto.  Sao Bento Station was built at the beginning of the 20th century and is remarkable for its large panels of Azulelejo tiles – about 20,000 of them. The blue and white murals represent moments in the history of Portugal, and the multi-coloured panels depict rural scenes from the various regions. Azulelejo is a form of Portuguese and Spanish painted tin-glazed ceramic tile work used on the exterior and interior of all types of buildings. The Moors brought tile making to Spain and Portugal and after they left that tradition was retained and developed over many centuries.

Next stop was the McDonalds in Praca de Liberdade, considered to be the most beautiful Maccas in the world – the building that is, not the food. Prior to 1995, when McDonalds  moved in, it was the famous Imperial Cafe. The main features including crystal chandeliers and a huge stained glass window behind the counter have been retained. It was quite busy but most people seemed to be like us. Wandering in to have a look and departing without ordering anything.

From McDonalds we went up to the Cathedral and got the first stamp in our Pilgrim Passports, our Credencials. We are supposed to get two stamps per day on our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Today we also got a stamp at our hotel. From the Cathedral we walked over the top deck of the Ponte de Luis 1 and down into Vila Nova de Gaia, the city on the opposite side of the Douro River to Porto. On the river edge this is very much a tourist hot spot and where elsewhere you pay 0.70 for a coffee, here we paid 2 Euro.

We went up a side street to see a street art installation called Half Rabbit. It is on the corner of a building, two stories high and made of recycled junk material. Over the road was a port cellar advertising cellar tours and port tasting for 10 € per person. We haven’t had any port in Portugal yet, so decided to have a look. From Marco we had an explanation of grape growing, Port making, the types of Port, the ageing, and finished off with a tasting of two ports, a white and a tawny. This took nearly an hour and was the highlight of the day. We were the only two on this tour so it was a very personal experience. This company was Quinta do Bom Dia, a small family business that has been producing port for five generations. They own 25 hectares of land far inland up the Douro River Valley.

Just along from the cellar was The Fantastic  World of Sardines. A large shop selling tinned sardines and also tinned octopus, muscles, cod and shrimp. This was all a bit mind boggling, thousands upon thousands of tins of sardines with all sorts of flavours. They had dozens of designs on the tins and tins for every year, so you can get a tin with the year of your birth on it. I like sardines, a good source of omega 3, but didn’t buy any here. These were more like souvenir sardines.

Next to the sardines was another amazing place, Casa Portuguesa do Pastel de Bacalhau.  A large two story high space with the walls lined with shelves full of old volumes, but definitely not a library. There was an elevated platform with a guy playing the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’ on an organ.  Made me wish I was 64. They were selling port wine by the glass with Pastel de Bacalhau. This is a cod fish cake filled with cheese. We had just had two glasses of port each so just bought some of the cod fish cake. There was a mezzanine floor where you could sit down and eat your cake, drink your port, listen to the organ and just soak up the wonderful atmosphere. It was pretty busy so we decided to go outside and sit in the sunshine beside the river.

Vila Nova de Gaia is on the south bank of the mouth of the Douro River. Ideal grape growing country is located far up the Douro River valley. Port wine was sent down the river on boats to Vila Nova de Gaia where the cellars of famous port wines were located. From here port was shipped around the world.

We walked back over the Ponte de Luis 1 lower deck and up through the city to get the train back to the hotel. A fun day for one that started off with no real plan.

Today we walked the first leg of our Camino Portuguese. “Unofficially” anyway.

The traditional Camino started at the Porto Cathedral and followed a 12 km inland route to Matosinhos. In the middle ages Porto was a town and most of this walk was through countryside. Porto is now a city of 1.5 million and the walk is 100% on pavement through busy, noisy commercial, residential and business districts with very little way finding and is not very pleasant. Purists still walk this route but some take the Metro from Porto to Matosinhos and start walking from there. This is what our tour company Caminoways do.  We wanted to walk the full Camino from the Cathedral in Porto to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, not get the train for the first 12km. Caminoways had us taking the train and then walking 25km from Matosinhos to Povoa Varzim on the first day. It is too much for us these days to walk the 12km plus the 25km in one day. We asked Caminoways to amend our itinerary but they wouldn’t.

So we decided to do our own cunning plan. A popular alternative these days is to walk Porto to Matosinhos alongside the Douro River and then along the coast. This is what we did today. We have used one of our days in Porto to walk to Matosinhos and then got the train back to Porto. On Wednesday, the “official” start of our Camino we will train to Matosinhos and walk from there.

There is a park we walk through on the way to the Metro and this morning we noticed there are huge blue ants in the park, and over the road on a building and 100 metres down the road on another building. They are about a metre long and made of fabric and metal and are quite lovely. Of course we had to sing the ants go marching song on our way to the Metro. At the cathedral we had our photo taken and set off down to the river. What a different place it was. Yesterday it was heaving with people, all hustle and bustle and noise in the hot sun on a Sunday afternoon. This Monday morning it was almost empty, quiet and cool. And it was misty. We knew Porto could be foggy. Westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean bring in cool moist air which cause condensation and precipitation. So it can be cool and foggy on the coast and hot and sunny further inland.  This was one of those foggy days.

The best part of today was walking along the Douro River to where it flows into the ocean. The path is right alongside the river and sometimes cantilevered out over it. This is  an older part of Porto with interesting old houses, chapels, fishing villages, a bird observation area and the tram line runs down to the ocean. You also get to walk under the imposing Ponte da Arrabida. A very high concrete arch bridge over the river. At the mouth of the river there are two lighthouses, both at the end of long piers. From the land you could hardly make them out in the fog and you had to walk right out to them to get a good look.

As you walk along beside the ocean the character changes. The path becomes a wide promenade and the road becomes multi lane. For about 5 kms there are large modern characterless apartments facing out to sea. There are lots of parks, trees, sandy beaches (each with a lone life guard but not a soul on the beach or in the water), sports facilities for beach football and volley ball, surf schools, an aquarium, a castle, a huge sculpture over a roundabout representing a fish net,  memorials to seafaring tragedies and lots more. This is the beach settlement and resort for Porto.

Matosinhos looks older and has a port on the river. There was a large cruise ship at the dock and there are container wharves, an oil tank farm and all the ugly industrial stuff that goes with a working port. From here we got the Metro back to the hotel and lunch in the nearby food hall again.  It was foggy until early afternoon but then cleared and it warmed up a lot.

Tomorrow we will be tourists in Porto and then on Wednesday we will be peregrinos again and train out to Matosinhos and start the real walking.

A successful day in the end. Neither of us slept well last night. I was brassed off about the laptop and Barbara is not sleeping well at the moment. I think the jet lag still has a sting in its tail. Fortunately we got the laptop issue resolved quickly and then we were able to get the Metro into the cathedral. Our aim was to get our Credencials, Pilgrim Passports, so we could start collecting stamps in them when we start walking.

At this hotel and all hotels to come except for the last one, breakfast is included. This was pretty much standard continental fare for Spain and Portugal. Juice, coffee, muesli, yoghurt, some bread, cheese and ham, croissants, muffins and pastal de nadas.  And some fresh fruit, apples and kiwi fruit. Suits us.

Coming up out of the subway into the sunlight in Porto was a bit of a shock. It was a glorious sunny Sunday and the streets, plazas, bars, cafes were teeming with people. We were not exactly sure where to go to get our Credencials but joined a long line of people waiting to go in and see the cathedral. Two lots of people saw our Camino patches on our back packs and asked us where to get their Credencials. As if we knew. On our way out of the cathedral we were able to tell them yes, they were in the right queue.

We are going to start our walk from the cathedral and go via the Douro River and out to the coast. Today we checked out the first part down to the river as we had been told it is not well sign posted. It turned out if you follow your nose you can*t go wrong. There were lots of boats on the river doing river trips so we hung around watching them and just generally people watching. We then crossed over the river on the Dom Luis 1 Bridge. This is a double deck metal arch bridge spanning the Rio Douro between the cities of Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. It was constructed in 1886 and at that time had the longest span in the world for a bridge of that type. The bridge was designed and the construction administered by a disciple of Gustave Eiffel of the Eiffel Tower, Paris. The lower deck is for vehicles and pedestrians and the upper deck is for public transport and pedestrians. We walked over the lower deck.

On the Gaia side we caught the Metro back over the high level deck and made our way back to the hotel. We had a late lunch at the same food hall we went to last night, the Mercado Bom Sucesso. It was also very busy. I spent the rest of the day getting to grips with the new laptop. My old Dell was 12 years old and this one has the latest version of Windows etc, so everything is just a bit different and there are a lot of new things to learn and set up.

Yeah we are back in business.

About 100 metres from our hotel is a large modern food hall and an upmarket shopping centre. The food hall was where we went for a meal last night ¬ see photos in the last post. The shopping mall had a small IT shop selling a lot of computer stuff. I went there last night about 9pm (they are open 10am to 10pm seven days a week) and spoke to a guy about  getting a new charger for my Dell laptop. No go. After deciding over night that I would buy a new laptop I went back to the shop (Chip 7) and spoke with a very helpful guy.

I now have a Lenova laptop with Windows 11 Pro for 609.99 Euro, 499.99 for the laptop and 110.00 for the Windows. 23% of this was taxes. It is a slightly different set up so I am floundering around a bit and stuff keeps coming up in Portuguese and I have to translate back to English. However I am just grateful to be back online reasonably easily and in short time.

So back to what I was going to blog yesterday.

An early start compared to the day before. Checked out of the hotel by 7.45. Today is a transfer day from Lisbon to Porto. Our intercity trains leaves from Oriente Station , 5 stops away on the Metro. We wanted to use our Lisboa Card, the 72 hours of which ended at 8.30 so we had to complete our trip by 8.30am. On a week day this would be no problem but this is Saturday and we were not sure of the frequency of the trains. As it happened it was not a problem. Out of the Metro system with time to spare.

Oriente is a major transport hub for Lisbon with the Metro, suburban, intercity and international (ie Spain) trains, and local, intercity and international buses. As well as a gazillion taxis, all of them black with a pale torquoise roof. This transport complex has mutiple levels, dozens of cafes and bars, a police station and the biggest supermarket I have ever been in. It was designed by Salvatore Calatrava, one of the super hero modern  architect/engineers and was completed in 1998. It is very organic with huge concrete arches and buttresses and the platforms are covered in a lattice structure of glass and metal a bit like walking under a canopy of ferns.

Our train left at 11.39 and thankfully, after our problems last year, there were no strikes this year. We arrived in Porto half an hour behind schedule at 3.30pm. We needed a couple of Andante train/bus cards and tried the ticket machines. You can switch these to English but we could not figure how to do this and didn´t have a hope of following all the instructions and options in Portuguese so went and saw a real person at a ticket desk  and she had us fixed up in about 2 minutes. Porto Caminha railway station has woeful signage  andIT  took us a long time walking around in circles before figuring out the Metro train is in a separate building about 100 metres from the intercity train. But then maybe we are just not very bright. Once we sorted this out it was a short Metro ride and a 10 minute walk to our hotel. The Hotel Duoro is smaller than the Ramada and more boutiquey and once again away from the historic centre but is close to a large food court, shopping mall and small supermarket. It is nice and quiet and we will be comfortable here for four nights. The photos for this post are in the preceeding one.

We have arrived in Porto and found our hotel.

Last night the charger to my laptop died, so I am doing this on its remaining battery life. When the charger died it blew the main fuse to our hotel room and we didn’t know what had happened for a while. The concierge had to come and reset the mcb from their main board.

There is no hope of getting a new charger here. It is 2012 and would have to be ordered from Dell – ie 2 weeks. Generic ones don’t work.

Today (Sunday) I will go and try and buy a new laptop. So until I do, no more blogs. The photos are from our travels yesterday.

Ciao, hope to be back in business soon.