Today was a day with much variety in the route. We opted for the nontraditional (and non-waymarked) way along the coast, mostly following the Ecovia Litoral Norte and it made for superb walking. The day started early for me, but I had turned out my light at 9:30 the night before so that wasn’t really a problem. We were fed an excellent breakfast in the guesthouse restaurant: juice, cafe com leite, warm buns, cheese (I remembered to look up the word for ham so I could get us a plate with just cheese), two kinds of jam and cake! And we ate every bite—even the cake with our second coffee.
It was raining quite heavily as we set out at 9:30 but that really only lasted a few minutes. It seemed easy getting out of town but we missed a turnoff down to the shore so we had a little longer beside a busy road but soon righted ourselves. The path today was sometimes paved, sometimes a lovely, crushed very fine gravel and sometimes on boardwalks. It felt like we could make decent time on some of the stretches. The shore was lovely with interesting rock formations and shelves, old windmills and forts and more places for salt drying.
We missed a second turn and started to correct that via a very overgrown and steep path but quickly changed our minds. A longer route but no twisted ankles seemed a better option. Our wrong turn gave us woods to pee in so that was actually a plus. Then we found a pretty spot for our lunch break and it was finally dry enough to take off our boots and socks during our break—bliss! There were horses and goats along the shore in one place, plus a beautiful swing in Praia de Ancora that we had to take advantage of. We were also happy to find water to fill up our bottles on this first sunny and warm day. It was a 28 kilometre day since we took the more scenic route in Caminha so we were good and tired by the time we arrived.
We got pressured by our guesthouse host to have breakfast there and then get sent in a taxi to a further out boat dock. While I had researched our boat options for the river crossing into Spain, we didn’t have a reservation yet. And neither of us seemed to be able to withstand his pressure. It will save us time on the other side and tomorrow is supposed to be wet. Still it turned us off the place before we’d even got our packs off.
We found groceries nearby, no problem, but all the restaurants were closed. Finally we asked and were directed to a sandwich shop which luckily also did a plate with chicken, fries and salad. I got my last glass of vinho verde before leaving Portugal. No final custard tarts though. Oh well. We’ll just have to eat lots in Lisbon before we fly home!