Saturday 26 September 2026 – The staff at the Chocolate Factory hotel has asked us to nominate a breakfast time, so we’d asked for 7.30am. We turned up on time (of course) and were served breakfast on a large tray. It included pretty much all the things we like for breakfast – fruit, yoghurt, bread rolls, the normal kind of things that one finds in a Portuguese hotel breakfast. There was pain au chocolat, of course, and chocolate cake, and pancakes with chocolate sauce, so we left pretty well chocolated breakfasted, into a steady stream of pilgrims:

not a huge crowd, but more than just the odd one or two.

Our first target was to get inside the cathedral to get the photos of which we’d been robbed the previous evening. We got there and saw that the door was, indeed, open, so we went inside….

to find that scaffolding surrounded quite a lot of the interior! There was a side chapel

which included St. James,

so we made the most of that, and left. As we passed the Igreja de Nossa Senhora de Agonia

(our lady the agony aunt?), Jane noticed that the route we were on – which we’d kind of blundered along, looking at yellow arrow waymarks and following the crowd – was not the route shown on our online map, so we blundered about some more to get us back on our track. It would seem that there are several slight variants of the route, and none of them are at all significant, it’s just that we like to know exactly where we are and where we’re headed.

Where we were headed took us past a rather serendipitous alignment of a fountain, a church and the Basilica,

and onwards past what we take to be a quarry;

it’s not usual, in our experience, to find them by the side of a normal road. Then we left tarmac for a while

past an offering which might have been for pilgrims

or maybe dog owners exercising their pets? We also found our first all-stone espigueiro,

which is an example of things being preserved for historical and cultural reasons; this being somewhat in contrast to this scene, which kind of sums up a very Portuguese landscape:

an abandoned house right beside a brand new building site.

We weren’t sure about the actual length of the walk today, but reckoned it would be at least 16km, with, it seemed, the first coffee stop at about half way. Eight kilometres is quite a long way to walk first thing without some kind of caffeine injection, so when, at around the 5km mark, we saw this advert

we decided it must be worth a diversion, as we had (just about) made the minimum qualifying distance. And it was. It was a delightful place – good coffee, excellent service, well-organised and obviously popular with the locals. I was all for staying for a second coffee, but we had to move on, really.

Shortly after leaving the café, we came up behind a couple of pilgrims, and I wish I’d been swift enough to take a picture: one with a full backpack, the other with almost no discernable bag at all. We all turned a corner to find a steep bit and the backpack chap dropped back. We exchanged a rueful comment and it turned out that (a) he was a Brit and (b) he needed an excuse not to carry on chatting with the lady he’d been talking to as we saw them. It turned out that she was Chinese and their conversation was entirely through Google translate, which must have been very difficult; so Bob dropped back and walked with us while the Chinese lady got out of range, as it were. We passed various scenes as we walked and talked

and, to be honest, mainly listened to Bob. He was a decent chap, came from West Runton in Norfolk (where I’d spent two holidays 60 years ago), but he talked too much and walked too slowly for me; if I am forced to amble, my back starts hurting. We passed a wonderful, if eccentric, sculpture garden,

a cross with votive offerings from passing pilgrims,

and a generator that looked like Darth Vader.

In the end, I got a bit fed up with his slow pace and walked on a bit ahead, only to catch up with an Australian group and fall into conversation with them. It was all very pleasant, and definitely part of the Camino experience, but when we reached the halfway house café, which, at 10km along the road was a further qualifying distance, the break for coffee made for a break in the grouping; we chatted to another couple at the café, who had been on the same Elevador ride down from Santa Luzia yesterday as us. Jane and I seemed to need less time to rest and so got away slightly before everyone else so that, really for the first time today, we had the trail to ourselves, which was lovely. I was so glad to get back to some solitude that I entirely forgot to take any photos of the café, which was another well-organised place, or the various people we’d been chatting to, which is a bad omission on my part. However, the walking and talking, which was nice, and the solitude afterwards, which was blissful, made me realise that we have a dissonance in our approach to these walks; we like to walk by ourselves, but we also like to have the opportunities for coffee stops. And you can’t have coffee stops without pilgrims.

The next few kilometres were very pleasant;

quiet, not too bad underfoot except for a couple of rocky patches when we left tarmac or cobbles, and with a few things to look at as we passed.

At the 14.5km mark, though, we had a hill to get over; not too much ascent – about 75 metres, but quite steep, and rocky in places.

It wasn’t all hard work, though, and there were some opportunities to use taking a photo as an excuse to have a bit of a breather: this dovecote, for example;

and this example of Morning Glory cimbing a grapevine.

The uphill section ended with one steeper passage,

with, on the wall there, an azulejo which seemed to say “are you mad, or something?”

and more steps made this something of a testing part of the walk,

not that the gradient seemed to be too much for a cyclist who came past.

We made it to the top, which was approximately marked by a cross, once again with votive offerings around and on it

and, of course, then had the benefit of a lovely view over the surroundings.

We could have taken a coffee before the climb, but We Were Strong and decided that we should have a coffee as a reward; shortly after we started down there was another place to stop,

with a great terrace

and some bizarre decor touches,

all overseen with charm and efficiency by a chap who looked disconcertingly like Gareth Southgate.

He was obviously a good manager, too.

Under way again, we soon could see our destination, Âncora, in the distance

and the road led down into the town

past, in one place, an unusually decorated house;

I think that literally all the roof tiles I’ve seen except these have been terracotta coloured.

It wasn’t just a case of walking straight down the road into town and to our hotel; the Caminho trail veered off the road past this unusual cross,

a rather cute chapel,

and an attractive garden/rest area.

We crossed a stream via an old bridge

and eventually emerged into Vila Praia de Âncora, which is handsome enough, if a bit faded in places.

The main square has an attractive church, the Capela de Nossa Senhora da Bonança,

which has beautfully painted ceilings above both altar

and nave.

Jane got a selo from this church, and then we set out to find the tourist office for another selo. This involved crossing the railway, which literally runs through the middle of the town.

This led us to the beach, which has a long prom (tiddly om pom pom)

with the tourist office at one end.

Selo duly obtained, we headed for our hotel, the Meira.

By this stage we’d covered 21km – somewhat longer than we’d expected – and so were glad that, for I think the first time this trip, we’d arrived after check-in time and so were certain that our room would be available. Once in the room, our main priority was, of course, a cup of tea and a bit of a relax. After a while I went out with the drone because – joy of joys – this is a place where flying is not restricted. My main object of interest was a small fort that is right on the beach, not too far from our hotel. It looked an interesting shape and I wanted to be able to capture it in an aerial photo.

It looks small and cute, and perhaps a bit artificial, but actually is part of a chain of coastal fortifications built to strengthen the defence of the Minho area and northern Portuguese coast against Spain. Although it is often associated with the Portuguese Restoration War (1640–1668), the evidence indicates that the fort itself was not yet built in 1668. It was probably constructed around 1700 during the reign of Pedro II. The defensive forts along this coast included, inter alia, the Forte da Areosa, near Viana do Castelo, whence we’d departed earlier; it was that fort which gave the Castelo name to Viana. Truly, it’s the fort that counts.

Anyhoo, I did a video as well, of course.

Unusually for us, we had dinner as opposed to a late lunch, mainly because we have a very short walk in front of us tomorrow and so can be very relaxed about when we start. The hotel restaurant has closed, as it’s after the season, but the receptionist recommended a nearby restaurant called Fonte Nova, so we went there. We had a decent meal – the local version of fish and chips, which is very tasty and comes with rice and salad as well – served at a great pace by the manager who was running the place single-handedly and very affably. We did note one apparently quite forceful exchange, though, with someone (blue shirt) who came in for a short while.

Money changed hands and blue shirt left; we have no idea what was going on there.

Today has been another really enjoyable day on the Caminho; great weather (the brutal heat of previous days has cooled to low-to-mid 20s), some chatting, some solitude, some drone flying. As I say, the morrow should be quite relaxed, as we only have about 9km to cover to get to Carminha, our next destination. However, for the first time since we left Lisbon, there is the prospect of some rain – not too much we hope. So we’ll keep an eye on the forecast and plan our day accordingly. Stay tuned to find out if we got soaked, why don’t you?