Category Archives: Walking

Day 21 – Grijó to Porto: Light duties

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Thursday 17 September 2026 – With only 13km to cover today, we had once again the luxury of a leisurely departure from the very pleasant Couto Rural. Lourdes had prepared a decent breakfast for us (we didn’t tell her about the extra yoghurt we’d bought in the supermarket and consumed furtively pre-breakfast in our room) and was prepared to drive us out to the Caminho trail, which was delightful of her. But we walked – it was only just over 1km, and it was a lovely morning. You can tell from the length of our shadows that the sun had well risen by the time we got under way.

There seems to be a Hispanic way of doing electrical wiring that looks slightly dodgy to our UK eyes – here, in Spain and in South America one sees coils of wire festooning the electricity poles. It generally seems to work OK, though, but we did see one very interesting take on wiring continuity.

The walk carried on for a while through pleasant neighbourhoods

one of which featured a coffee stop. We hadn’t gone our usual qualifying distance of 5km, but since we had a leisurely schedule for the day, we looked in for a cup of meia de leite.

It was one of those places where the town bore was holding forth at great length and volume.

The neighbourhood of Perosinho has a small but well-formed church

and a substantial espiguero (handy for storing stuff), just by the bins (handy for throwing stuff away).

The word espigueiro means “cob store”. Its root is the Portuguese word espiga, which means an ear of corn, or a cob. They are traditional granaries built to store and dry corn as well as other crops such as wheat, rye, and barley. One of the houses in the neighbourhood had a rather cute letterbox to match.

After about 3km, we turned off tarmac onto a track which is another stretch of Roman road;

the guard cats let us through eventually. It’s rather better surfaced than the stretch we walked yesterday.

We had, then, about 4km of pleasant woodland track, through which sometimes the Roman surface showed through and sometimes it didn’t.

We passed a waymark which we’d seen a lot of.

The blue arrow is the sign for the Caminho de Fatima, just as the yellow one is for Santiago, but we wondered what the JO meant that we’d seen a few times elsewhere. The JO is short for Jornada, an accepted day stage on one of the various routes that lead from various places in Portugal to Fatima. The Santiago and Fatima Caminho trails coincide in a lot of places, but there’s no formal connection between the two. What we’ve been seeing is the waymarking for the Northern Route of the Fatima Caminho.

The track passes an adventure playground

where people can indulge in paintballing and such. There are also elevated pathways among the trees; whether one is allowed to launch aerial paintball attacks, I don’t know.

The track led us over a hill, and the downward continuation was a bit tricky in parts

but otherwise it was a very pleasant  interlude in the walk, which I had expected to be entirely on roads and through suburbs. All good things must come to an end, and so we eventually came to “civilisation” at the other end of the woodland

and walked down and over a bridge into a busy suburb of Porto.

I’ve circled in red the point where the woodland track came to an end.

From this point, the walk was simply a largely gentle downhill stroll on the streets through Vila Nova de Gaia, the suburb of Porto south of the river. There are plenty of bars and cafés, so we stopped a couple of times more before we got to our hotel, since we were in no hurry.

One of the underpasses we walked through had been nicely decorated

and we found a bit of branding reuse that I doubt the filmmakers would sanction.

We were on Avenida da Republica, a major thoroughfare, leading directly down to the river; a tram service operates along the middle of it,

and some of the buildings by its side have been decorated.

Vila Nova de Gaia has an impressive town hall

and there’s another distinguished-looking building nearby, Casa Barbot, which is the HQ of the Vila Nova de Gaia department of heritage, culture and tourism.

It is, we read, the only example of Art Nouveau in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Near the river is a park, from which you can see the very imposing monastery Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar

which, going by the number of people in front of it, offers a commanding view over the river. The park itself offers a pretty decent view, but there are enough things that get in the way to make it difficult to get an overall picture of what is a very attractive waterfront. There is one spot from which one can construct a panorama; it really is a delightful view.

Also delightful was the fact that our hotel was right there.

So strictly speaking, we’re in Vila Nova de Gaia, not in Porto, which begins on the other side of the river. We went in to their reception area which looks dead posh

but which actually smelt not a little of drains. Our room wasn’t yet available, and so we went to the hotel restaurant for a spot of (surprisingly reasonably-priced) lunch, which we took on a terrace with a fantastic view over the river

although conversation had to pause occasionally when a train went over the bridge. This is the Ponte Luis I bridge, a double-deck affair spanning the Douro river; the upper level is pedestrian and metro and connects directly to Porto city centre;  the lower level links to the waterfront and carries vehicular traffic and pedestrians.

The hotel itself is a remarkable creation. The reception, at the upper level of the bridge, is on the 14th floor (of 15 – I think the top floor is reserved for very expensive suites) and the restaurant on the 10th. Intervening floors have various bars, and below the restaurant are the floors with the hotel bedrooms – we’re on the 6th floor, for example, and have a pretty similar view to the photo above. This might be rather convenient – the hotel lifts can get us from upper to lower bridge level without having to walk up all those tedious hills.

After lunch our room had become ready and so we settled in. I popped off to do some laundry – these things are important, y’know – in a nearby laundrette which was very well-equipped and easy to use. And we have two full days to experience Porto, starting with a guided tour tomorrow morning. I must say, I’m rather looking forward to looking around.

Day 20 – From Malaposta to Grijó: Espigueiro Special

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Wednesday 16 September 2026 – Breakfast was officially served from 0730, so we were up, packed and dropped our bags at reception such that we could get there promptly. A suspiciously large number of people appeared to be very well through their breakfasts, so perhaps they started early. No matter – we weren’t in a rush. It was a workmanlike breakfast rather than anything fancy, but it fuelled us up and allowed us to be on our way shortly after 8am, headed for Grijó, some 15km away.

We started along the (very) busy N1, but very soon branched off on Roman Road Road.

It passed a few houses, one of which looked un-nervingly like Darth Vader,

but soon gave way to a rougher track.

This was nice and straight, as one would expect with a Roman road, but its surface hadn’t weathered as well as the spectacularly smooth Via Cassia that we experienced in Italy when we walked the Via Francigena; I could have roller skated on that, but I would hesitate even to ride a mountain bike over this surface.

Barely one kilometre after leaving the N1 we were passing a very rural scene

and also a very typically Portuguese one – a once-handsome but now entirely abandoned building.

This is even marked on Google maps – the ruins of Quinta da Fonte Nova.

To our UK eyes, all these abandoned buildings seem like something of an eyesore, perhaps because if you are in an area in the UK with a lot of abandoned buildings you may well be in quite a bit of danger. Here in rural (or even semi-rural) Portugal, where there is no pressure on living space, if for some reason a building stops being used, it is just left there, and new building might carry on around it. It makes no logical sense to knock it down; one might as well wait for someone else to buy the site and do with it what they will. But to us it makes the place look scruffy, which is not a fair judgement on our part.

The walk itself was perfectly pleasant, but unremarkable except perhaps in the number of potential coffee stops on offer. We’re nearing Porto and making our way through connected conurbations, so an increase in the number of cafés, pastelarias and padarias (bakeries) is only to be expected. I shall be interested to see how the coffee stop landscape works out once we get into more popular Caminho territory north of Porto. Anyway, there’s little point in my telling you a litany of the places we passed through; here are some items we noted in various places as we walked.

There were several alminhas, such as these

Santiago – St. James

although the last one is a bit large to be an alminha; perhaps it’s an alma? As well as these, there were a couple of chapels, one of which was open, so we looked in briefly.

There’s old Santiago himself on the left

A couple of churches were noteworthy. This one, the Capela de Santa Rita, was marvellously tiled.

This one, the Parish Church of Vergada, was a very modern construction,

and this one, the Capela de Nossa Senhora da Divina Providência

is local to our accommodation here in Grijó. Like many others, it has the loudspeakers on stalks for broadcasting chimes. But something has gone badly wrong with the sound system. We could hear it from our accommodation:

Why it has one “bell” out of tune and one (occasionally) missing, I can’t understand, since this is being played through speakers and is not a real carillon. It’s amusing nonetheless.

(The chime, which we heard played by automated church bells in several places as we walked, is fundamentally a simplified, abbreviated sequence of the “Avé de Fátima” (“A 13 de Maio”), a hymn written about the miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima on May 13th, 1917. Instead of playing the entire verse, electronic parish bell systems isolate only the most recognizable refrain. The Fatima Basilica, a popular pilgrimage destination in Portugal, has a carillon of 64 bells specifically cast to be able to play this tune.)

As well as the ghastly Darth Vader house, there were other, more handsome, places to be seen.

The house above had an art-deco touch that we saw in other places – bas-relief figures on the walls.

According to AI, these are not uncommon in the area and are supposed to represent spirits, or some such.

Another nice art deco work was this water tower.

I’m not sure whether it was just to supply the town at large or just the (largely abandoned) factory where it stood.

There were some abandoned buildings which would once have been handsome places

The white house calls itself “Casa Grande”; I wonder how it feels about its rather larger pink neighbour?

Simply wonderful Morning Glory climbing all over this one

A particularly sad case was this lovely tiling

which is now part of a mere façade.

One town seemed to specialise in selling religious (and other) statuary.

Inside one of the shops

A walk on the Caminho wouldn’t be complete without a Santiago statue, of course.

The recognition of pilgrims seems to be increasing as we head north. Many people now wish us “bom viaje” as we go rather than just “bom dia”; and in one case the driver of a thundering great – articulated trailer! – lorry

stopped (ignoring the fact that by doing so he caused a traffic jam) when he noticed we’d left the official Caminho and wanted to put us right; we were able to reassure him that we were just heading to our accommodation, but it was a lovely gesture on his part.

A lot of places had espigueros and I was interested to see the variety of shapes, sizes and methods of access.

Some had a door at the side, some at the end. All the ones we saw seemed in good condition, albeit not necessarily in use, reflecting their status. Like horreos in Spain, they are protected as a cultural asset and can’t be removed or significantly changed; any repairs must be with traditional materials.

This top-heavy, wooden contruction is typical of the area south of Porto, because granite is in short supply; these are coastal-variant espigueiros, commonly known as canastros or caniços. Being wider at the top boosts upward airflow to dry corn quickly in the humid coastal climate; and the angled wooden walls and overhanging tiled roofs shed heavy coastal rain away from the grain. The inverted angle makes it difficult for rodents to climb up the sides, though some of them were also sited on top of toadstool shapes to make the rodents’ job more difficult still.

There was a lavadouro – a public laundry space

which, since a nearby plaque asserted that it had been recertified in 2022, one could infer was still in use.

At one stage there was a loud siren kind of noise. It seemed to come from a car, which stopped and its owners got out and started rummaging around in the back.

There was a lot of polystyrene packaging in the van, and so I guess this must be some kind of mobile shop.

One chap was making his way by horse and cart, something we hadn’t seen before in Portugal.

We had taken coffee (OK, two coffees. And pastries.) in Vergada, which was about halfway along our route, and we had no particular plans to stop again, despite the (relative) profusion of opportunities. However, we came across this series of signs.

and decided that it would be rude not to look in.

It was the Forninho do Mosteiro, a nice place, but desperately warm in direct sunshine.

Jane got her selo, and I got my beer.

The Mosteiro it refers to is the Monastery of San Salvador at Grijó. The Caminho runs between it and a very large and posh-looking cemetery.

We took a look at the monastery buildings

and their rather nicely done modern take on the Madonna and Child

but the monastery itself was closed so we could look no further. By this stage we were close to our accommodation, which lies about a kilometre off the Caminho. We arrived at the Couto Rural and at first I feared that we would have the quite usual situation of somewhere being locked and deserted and wondering what to do next,

but Jane rang the bell and our luck was in, as was the owner, a lovely lady called Lourdes, who invited us in and plied us with beer whilst we sorted out the details of our booking and breakfast needs. Our bags had arrived and Lourdes showed us to our accommodation, which had a nice kitchen area

which suited us well. The nearest restaurant that Lourdes considered suitable was about 20 minutes walk away; but there’s a supermarket closer, so we walked to that and got ourselves healthy stuff like yoghurt, fruit and salady bits.

Couto Rural is a splendid little conglomeration of different rooms and accommodation options,

and it even has its own – very imposing – espigueiro.

We are well ensconced and readying ourselves for the final walk into Porto tomorrow. It’s a short walk – the shortest so far – and the temperature isn’t forecast to rise above 25°C, so we can be leisurely about our start. I’m not sure whether there’s much to report about the walk into Porto (the 20th stage of our 37-stage Caminho), except that it goes up quite a long way before it goes down again. Anyway, stay tuned and you’ll see how we get on.

Day 18 – Albergaria-a-Velha to Oliveira de Azeméis: Nice to be walking again

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Monday 14 September 2026 – With just 20km to do today, and the temperature not forecast to go over 30°C until midday, an early start seemed to be a good way to get the best out of the walk. I set the alarm for 0500, but luckily woke up anyway at exactly 0500, as some technical hitch with my phone had rendered its alarm silent; it was doing its best, poor thing, but it was the other side of the bedroom and behind a curtain so I can’t blame it for not waking me. (Or, spookily, perhaps it did; perhaps my symbiosis with my phone is more powerful than I realise?)

Anyhoo…

I had expected to have some kind of faux-cheery interaction with one or more of the other guests of the place, but when we got down to the lounge at quarter to six, it was silent and everyone seemed to have taken their breakfasts already. So we ate what we fancied of our breakfast pack, left as promised, and were on the road at, oh goodness me, 0625. Being able to appreciate the dawn colours seems to be becoming a bit of a habit.

Before long, the road gave way to a track

and we carried on, past a Memorial to Nossa Senhora do Socorro

and on to another forestry track, where Eucalyptus once again figured strongly, although not, as far as we could tell, in a programmatic way.

The track led us eventually back on to the major N1 road at Albergaria’s new town, Albergaria-a-Nova, where we passed an albergue which gave us a useful status check on our walk.

So: we’re over half way there, then!

The N1 is not a rewarding road to walk on, as it features a lot of heavy traffic, but we trudged along, passing the occasional attractive tile work

(I hesitate to call it an azulejo, as it hasn’t much blue in it); an attractive modern church

at which Jane scored us another selo; a modern-looking lavodouro

and a place which said it was “from pilgrims for pilgrims”

but which was closed, so not much use for us pilgrims, then. For the last couple of these photos, we’d actually diverged from the N1 onto a parallel minor road. We thought we saw another misty morning scene

until the drifting smell told us that this was smoke from a fire, which, of course, we hoped was intentional. By this stage we’d done about 10km, i.e. half the day’s walking and so it was jolly well time for a coffee. There was a place back on the N1 so we cut back to it.

It was a bit transport caff-y, but we got a decent hot coffee and a chocolate salami each, which I hoped would boost my somewhat flagging energy levels (it seemed to work, by the way). Then we carried on along the N1 and rejoined the Caminho a bit further up, crossing the railway at a level crossing to do so, and then walking alongside the actual railway track for a while.

I have to say that I’m rather glad it’s a very, very minor rail route, as a passing train might have meant us making an undignified dive down the bank to avoid being flattened.

Most of the rest of the walk was on quiet roads: past an attractively decorated school in Curval;

seeing a very substantial mansion in the middle distance;

passing another, seemingly less well-used lavadouro;

and a distinctive church, the Igreja Matriz do Pinheiro da Bemposta.

Although we didn’t pass this church directly, we did walk through Pinheiro de Bemposta, which has some handsome buildings

and then reached a bridge crossing the N1.

The peregrina you can see on the bridge is actually the 86-year old Louise from Pennsylvania, who had started out very early this morning and was walking at her own steady pace. We had a quick chat with her as she rested in the outskirts of the old village of Bemposta. She would be walking a longer distance than us, a 30km stage to Arrifana; clearly made of sterner stuff than us.

The old village of Bemposta has a considerable history of which the village is proud; the handsome buildings in the short stretch of its main street are described in info boards which give a description of the distinctive characteristics of each of the buildings.

The 15th Century Casa de Bemposta

The ‘Paços do Concelho’ building used to be the headquarters of the administrative and judicial power, probably built in the 18th Century. I hasten to add that we bypassed the beer truck, even though it was open; a beer at 10am didn’t seem somehow right

The Casa do Arco. It looks disused, but houses a dwelling

The last photo is unidentified by info board, but I thought it was a handsome one.

Exiting Bemposta through the arch gave us a good view of the distant countryside

though actually a less uplifting one of the nearer landscape.

The rest of our walk was through various conurbations before got to our destination.  We went down through Besteiros, with more pointy roof features

some attractive tilework

and this handsome place

with its symbolic guard cat on the lych gate.

Our track took us back perilously close to the railway again,

and down a pleasant cobbled path

where we got our first view of Oliveira de Azeméis at the top of the hill we would eventually have to climb.

The track went over a small river. On the bridge was Senhor da Ponte, Our Lord of the Bridge.

We had to cross the railway again, via a very informal route

which was pretty much at the start of the final climb towards Oliveira de Azeméis. It was a 100m ascent in about 1.5km, so not desperately steep, but the weather was hot enough by now – around 30°C – that I for one was exceedingly glad when I finally tottered to the top. We then had a short walk through the town, which is a handsome place, nicely kept tidy, with some striking buildings

touches of prettification

and a generally refined air along the main street.

Fine houses such as those above were built at the end of the 19th century by former emigrants returning with new-found wealth from Brazil; they are known as casas dos brasileiros.

Our hotel, the Hotel Dighton,

had many things to recommend it, such as air-conditioning, a room they already had available for us and a restaurant that would serve lunch until 3pm. Our bags hadn’t yet arrived, but it was anyway lovely to be able to relax for a while before going for lunch. And it was a Nice Lunch; a Very Nice Lunch. It’s a very old school, quite posh restaurant, with proper service (they’d pour one’s wine for one, if one drank wine), linen napkins, 70s-tastic music, a splendid azulejo and a chef in charge of a great open-fire grill

who assiduously attended to his grill, fanning it to keep it Just So.

He produced a wonderful grouper steak for Jane and some very succulent lamb for me, and we really enjoyed it; for me, probably the best meal I’ve had so far in Portugal – and there have been some good ones.

After lunch (and the eventual arrival of our suitcases) we thought we’d take a short walk around the town. It has a huge variety of churches, but the Mother Church is a fine building

with an impressive azulejo-surrounded portal.

Inside

there is a very substantial Eucharistic Throne.

It’s slightly odd that we keep finding these thrones when they’re something that the Papacy banned centuries ago and which we’d thought were kept largely out of sight.

Near the church is a Roman momument,

the Marco Miliário da Milha XII (12th Mile Milestone), which marked Mile 12 of the ancient Roman military road that connected Coimbra to Gaia in eastern Portugal. It was originally erected between 23 AD and 24 AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, and was originally discovered in the late 18th century in the nearby parish of Ul.

Having taken a swift coffee (OK, and pastries) at a lovely confeitaria, we finished our walk by visiting the fountain at the bottom of our hotel’s street.

and then headed back to the hotel to rest and recharge for the next day.

Tomorrow’s destination is Malaposta (the opposite, we suppose of the Bemposta we visited today?) which is just 16km away – a relatively short walk on a day which is forecast to be a positively frigid 27°C. This means we can even indulge ourselves in a hotel breakfast, which should be a solid start to the day. I’ll report on it in due course.