Tuesday 13 March 2018

Camino Portuguese (March 13, 2018) - New Day 1 Porto to Vilar do Pinheira

A good day today...no rain...feet, while sore, held up from a blister perspective and we are moving again. On to Santiago de Compostela...well a small but important first step!

Paulo and I think we are reasonably intelligent people...he is a lawyer and I am...well nothing really. We are using Map My Walk app in flight mode on our respective smart phones. Both of us use it at the same time and guess what the results are consistent. As we entered Vilar do Pinheiro both our phones died at 20.5 kms and we had no idea where Metro Vilar Suites our stop for the night was.

So Paulo started asking people...walk straight ahead...cross a highway...go under an archway...continue etc etc etc. I wanted to ask someone however my Portuguese is limited to obrigado, por favor and WC (not really Portuguese).

Finally after much whining on my part we stopped and I brilliantly pulled out my battery pack which can be used to recharge a phone. Within seconds Google maps told us we were 400 meters from our destination.

So based on the fact that our iphones died at 20.5 kms our best estimate is that we walked 22 kms in 5 hours or 4.4 kms an hour...slightly over the new target of 4 kms.

Going forward we came up with an incredible plan. One of us will use Map My Walk for 10 km or so, then shut it off and the other can start Map My Walk at that point. At the end of the day we simply add up the two pieces (we have calculators on our phones and know how to use them!) and voila our days total is determined and we have working phones. As Monty Python’s John Cleese would say “bloody brilliant”.

We started the day at 8:45 (latest I have ever started) as we were expecting to walk 18 kms and wanted to visit the Monasterio de Leco de Baiio which opened only at 2:00 on the Maia route variant.


Breakfast at Panaderia...ham and cheese!

The first arrow
We wound our way through Porto which was quite interesting with many ups and downs which was a welcome change from the flat walking so far. What was not so great today and really hard on the feet was 100 % hard surface walking cobblestone road, cement sidewalk, asphalt. What I would give for a gravel road or a simple country grass and dirt trail! A few other pictures from the day...


Possibly the highlight of the day...chocolate cookie for .40 Euros!!!
We arrived at the Monasterio at 11:45 so waiting to 2:00 did not appeal. From the outside a very impressive historical building!!!

Monasterio de Leco de Baiio


Tomorrow an 18 km day... unfortunately a lot of rain!!!

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