Friday 25 September 2026 – Another Long Post Alert!!

The observant among you will notice that we finished up yesterday in Ponte de Lima, but yet today’s entry starts from Estrada. This is because, having spent some time on the Central Caminho (mainly so we could see a lot of cocks in Barcelos), we have now decamped to the Coastal Caminho. Apart from giving us a chance to sample the different looks and feels of Litoral, Coastal and Central Caminhos, this gives us a chance to see something that is of a fair significance in the context of the Portuguese Way. That thing is in Castelo do Neiva,and I suppose we could have just taken a ride directly there. There were times today when I wish we’d done just that, but, whatever, Jane had selected the village of Estrada for our start point, about 25km to the south-west of Ponte de Lima as the crow flies. As the Uber car drives, though, it’s about 32km. From that starting point, our walk was about 15km and the forecast was for a nice day – about 23°C at most, and sunny – so we treated ourselves to a hotel breakfast and our Uber dropped us off at the temporarily closed Pizzeria Monica just before 9am. It was a misty morning

and, frankly, a chilly start, with the mist not making things feel any warmer. But we got going and it was almost immediately clear that we would find a different vibe on this trail than we’d had on the Central Caminho – there were many more pilgrims on the trail and a lot more items of Caminho infrastructure in place.

Shortly after we started, we reached the Caminho Marking Stone,

which is in some ways, I suppose, the Portuguese equivalent of the Cruz de Ferro, the Iron Cross on the Camino Francés. It’s not the highest point, like the Iron Cross is, but it does serve as a place for pilgrims to put markers, wishes, prayers and so forth.

As well as more pilgrims, another difference from the Central route that we’d walked was the larger amount of walking on woodland trails. On the Francés, it’s fashionable to be sniffy about being reduced to walking on tarmac roads, but we’d become used to it on much of our Portuguese walking thus far. In theory, it’s nice to walk in woodland, but the trails can be very much more tricky underfoot than tarmac or boardwalk.

So we stumbled along, up and down these trails for a while, until after a particuarly sharp downhill stretch we were suddenly alongside a river.

I think the stepping stones you see in this photo were once the Caminho route, but the waymarks took us to a proper bridge, the Ponte do Sebastião, to cross the river.

Immediately after crossing on the bridge, we came across a couple of good examples of the increased Caminho infrastructure that marked out today’s walking.

The first was this eye-catching advert for an albergue a little further along the path. The second was a lady who had parked halfway up quite a steep path and who was offering refreshments on a donativo basis.

Among her offerings was a particularly sweet persimmon that she cut for us so we could share it as we walked. The path continued up. And up. Because we had to visiit The Thing that provoked our switch to the Coastal trail; and it was still quite high above us. First, though, we passed the albergue which had constructed that advert we saw earlier.

The Thing was the church you see, perched high on a hill in this photo.

It’s the Santiago Church of Castelo de Neiva, and it was up quite a steep path. Now you might understand why I might have preferred it as our Uber drop off point. But I suppose some degree of suffering is part of the Authentic Pilgrim Experience, so toiling uphill it was, then. One can at least pause en route, a few metres short of the church, to admire the Santiago niche,

draw breath and then press on to the church, which is an attractive one, built in very much the vernacular for the area.

(On a parenthetical note, just by the church is this bas relief:

It represents the three children whose visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917 were the basis for building the Basilica there; so this site is also on one of the Fatima Caminho routes, even though the two Caminhos are not related at all.)

The Santiago Church

features, as one might expect, quite a lot of representations of the Saint.

The reason the church is important in the context of the Portuguese Way is embedded in one of the walls of the church.

These stones were discovered during a restoration of the church. They show an ancient 9th-century Latin inscription and a sign detailing the consecration of the Igreja de Santiago de Castelo de Neiva in Portugal, which took place in the year 862. This establishes the early importance and credibility of the Coastal route of the Way of St. James in Portugal in the face of a certain sniffiness on the part of those who believe (or wish to establish) that the Central route is the true way to go!

Oh, and there was a caff there. We were only a few kilometres into the walk, but a coffee stop seemed the right thing to do. A few other pilgrims were resting there, too.

Having walked all the way up there, we also, of course, got the benefit of a decent view over the surrounding countryside.

The rest of the walk was lovely. The sun had risen to dispel the early chill from the mist, and it made for pleasant walking, as did the general scenery.

Adverts for albergues were very common on this stretch

and there were a couple of Caminho Pop-ups, providing refreshments and selos.

As we approached Viana do Castelo, we passed an impressive looking monastery and church – São Romão do Neiva.

There was construction work going on; it’ll be lovely when it’s finished. There was a Caminho innovation nearby

offering all sorts of things that might help the Pilgrim In Need (not just chocolate bars and water, but also plasters, electrolytes, rain gear – and Durex!). Opposite the monastery was the Capela da Senhora do Crasto, though getting to the Capela was a bit challenging,

and I considered taking it on

for only the briefest period.

We passed another Santiago church

the Igreja Matriz da Paróquia de São Tiago de Vila Nova de Anha. The keen of eye will already have spotted the brilliant white St. James in his niche under the cross, but Jane spotted something else as well.

In the stained glass window, we see Santiago Matamoros, or Saint James the Moor-slayer, the legendary warrior representation of James, depicted as a knight on a white horse helping Christian armies defeat the Moors. This was the first time we’d seen this representation of St. James in this country. The legend says he miraculously appeared on a white horse with a raised sword during the mythical Battle of Clavijo in 844 AD to help King Ramiro I defeat Muslim forces. Historians agree that the battle and the miraculous intervention never happened; the story and imagery were invented centuries later during the medieval expansion of Christian kingdoms. Marketing, in short.

We were nearing Viana do Castelo, but first we had a final hill to climb – quite a steep one.

Of course, we got the benefit of great views as we breasted the rise,

and I also had a schoolboy grin at a signpost.

We could see Viana do Castelo, and shortly we could also see one of its best-known landmarks;

its iron bridge. We would have to cross that to get to our hotel.

The route down was, in places, steep and tricky, but then led to the road into the town and towards the bridge; and we could see another significant landmark, too;

high above the town is the Basilica of Santa Luzia. Impressive as it looks, I decided there and then that I wasn’t prepared to walk up to it.

The bridge, then.

The 563m long Eiffel Bridge is a double-deck iron bridge that spans the Lima River. Opened in 1878, it was designed by the firm of French engineer Gustave Eiffel (years before he built the eponymous Tower in Paris) to replace an earlier wooden bridge. The lower deck carries the Minho railway line while the upper deck serves car traffic, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Our hotel, the engagingly-titled Chocolate Factory,

was but a short walk from the bridge. It operated as a chocolate factory from 1914 for a century, but the building fell into disrepair when the company owning it moved on. It has since been redeveloped as a rather lovely boutique hotel. They don’t manufacture chocolate there any more, but they do do some final production work and sell chocolate in their own shop.

Our room was available, so we headed up for an immediate cup of tea to help us plan the rest of our time here, for Viana do Castelo is an interesting place. It was founded in 1258 by King Afonso III as a fishing settlement, flourished during the Age of Discoveries – its shipyards built vessels used in Atlantic exploration – and grew wealthy in the 16th-17th centuries through trade with Newfoundland (cod fishing) and colonial Brazil. In the 19th century the name was modified to distinguish it from many other Vianas, with “Castelo” referring to the 16th century Forte de Santiago da Barra, originally built in the late 16th century under Spanish Habsburg rule of Portugal to defend the harbour entrance.

Having set my face firmly against walking up to the Basilica, I was delighted when Jane told me that there was a funicular railway to take people up the hill; so we included that and the Cathedral as Things We Must See, and we went for a walk. Obviously. The town itself is handsome;

we passed the Igreja das Almas (Church of the Souls), which was the city’s first parish church

and has a Eucharistic Throne.

Honestly, you can’t move without stumbling across a Eucharistic Throne in these here parts.

We decided that we should make visiting the Basilica a priority – provided that the funicular was working and that it hadn’t had the same fate as others after the Lisbon disaster. So we walked out to it; it has a charming base station

which is managed very firmly by a lady who marshals people with great energy and charm; for there was a queue; not a long one, but enough to fill the confines of this very small base station.

Above the ticket office was a delightful azulejo of the Basilica.

One could peer up the line to see the car depart or arrive

The funicular, or The Elevador de Santa Luzia, to give its proper name, is rather more than a tourist lift: it was part of Viana do Castelo’s early-20th-century ambition to develop Monte de Santa Luzia as a destination in its own right. It started operation over a hundred years ago and is a very impressive piece of engineering. It climbs 160 metres over about 650 metres, with an average gradient of roughly 25%. Two cars operate as counterweights to one another: the descending car helps pull the ascending one, with the two meeting halfway.

Its 650-metre course makes it Portugal’s longest funicular. It takes about seven minutes from bottom to top, and debouches just beow the Basilica, which is a breathtaking building.

The building was constructed between 1904 and 1959 and is a striking blend of Neo-Byzantine, Neo-Romanesque, and Gothic revival elements, heavily inspired by the Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Paris. It boasts the largest rose windows on the Iberian peninsula.

It wasn’t immediately possible to take lots of photos inside because there was a service going on, so we passed the time looking at the fabulous views over the city from the height of the Basilica.

Eventually we were able to walk around inside and get an eyeful of the interior.

I was particularly taken with this altar,

not because of the detail of the carving, which is exquisite, but because of the light playing on it from one of the three rose windows.

After we got back to the city, we took an early dinner in the Republic Square, where we had our first taste of franceshina, an utterly over the top take on a cheese and ham toastie invented in Porto, with added beef and sausage and served in a pool of spicy sauce. It was delicious, but gave us some insight into why there are so many people of ample girth in this country. After eating we wanted to visit the Cathedral, but there was, would you believe it, a service going on, so we couldn’t see inside it. We went back later, but they’d closed early. Grrrr!

Maybe we can see the inside tomorrow. We have to get to Ancora, which is either 16km or 19km away depending on whom you believe. We have another pleasant, sunny day in prospect, so there’s no rush to get out too early and I’m looking forward to another enjoyable day’s walking.