Tag Archives: Caminho Portugues

Day 31 – Vila Praia de Âcora to Caminha: Short and sweet

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Sunday 27 September 2026 – Today’s walk was a short one because yesterday’s was shorter than it might have been. The “official” – Brierley – stage runs from Viana do Castelo to Caminha, which Brierley says is 27km but which according to my calculations would be 31km. I’m not saying we can’t cope with 31km in a day; I am saying that I’m not going to if there’s an alternative which allows us a little more time to take in the surroundings rather than just yomping the distance. That’s why we only had 21km to cover yesterday, which got us to Vila Praia de Âncora, and why we had only 10km to cover today to get us to Caminha, basically by walking along the coast.

Our weather prospects today were a little less pleasing than the low-20s and sunshine that we’ve enjoyed for the previous few days; there was actual rain forecast. Although we didn’t expect it to be anything more than a few drops, we still made sure that rain jackets were easily to hand in our backpacks. As we left Vila Praia de  Âncora,

passing the Anchor Fort

and a fishermen’s monument

which reads ​”Tribute from the People of Vila Praia de Âncora to their fishermen and their families, to the hardships at sea and the waiting on land, to the tears of grief and to the bread brought back with every return”, the weather was, indeed rather grey,

but the rain obligingly held off for our walk, bar a couple of drops. Vila Praia de Âncora is very much a seasidey holiday sort of place, and there are various leisure activities promoted near the shore; pétanque,

watching the tide roll in,

or walking the path by the shore, when all you have to do is dodge the cyclists, e-scooter maniacs and

pilgrims.

They even cater for swingers here.

Of course, there are the nods to the Caminho as well.

A short distance along the path is another of these chapels-with-a-front-porch (Romanesque style) that we’ve seen quite a few of over the last days.

This one is the The Santo Isidoro Chapel, from the 19th century. According to the info board outside it, the chapel holds, inter alia, a status of St. James, but Isidoor Open?

Nope. So we’ll never know. Jane peered through the keyhole

but couldn’t see any Santiago statue. The waymarking is a little confusing in places

which might result from the confluence at this point of the Litoral and Coastal routes. It makes no practical difference – whichever you choose basically parallels the coast all the way to Caminha. Looking north, one can see Spain.

There’s the small matter of the river Minho between us and that hill, and at Caminha it’s possible to take a ferry across; some pilgrims do that, but our route was going to keep us on the Portuguese side for a while yet. Looking to the headland to the left, one can make out a fort.

This one is on a pensinsula, Ponta da Ruiva, strategically placed to keep an eye on those Spanish bastards in case they try to invade again; presumably it’s another part of the chain of the fortifications including Âncora and Viana de Castelo.

About half way along the walk is the town of Moledo

and one can opt either to carry on the Litoral path, or to duck under the railway

and continue on the Coastal path. This is what we decided to do in the (vindicated) hope that there would be fewer pilgrims and the certainty that there would be fewer cyclists and scooterists.

Unsurprisingly, given the density of pilgrimage going by, there are entrepreneurial pop-ups;

this one, shoreline side, offered a variety of tat jewellery and other creations and one could get a selo here, too; and there was one on the road side, also.

We stopped for a coffee (OK, yes, pastries, too) in Moledo, and walking the road side took us past a few vignettes,

including this rather fine mansion, which is typically Portuguese in that it’s utterly impossible to tell whether it’s lived in or abandoned. Eventually road side and shoreline side coincide (see what I did there?) and there’s just a long straight road into Caminha.

Caminha, then. It might seem that its name is related to Caminho, similar to the Touguinha/Touginho we came across some days ago. But it isn’t. The place name Caminha is centuries older than its association with the pilgrim route. Caminha/Caminho have different etymological origins and the similarity is entirely coincidental. The Romans had a military presence here, and the settlement grew as a fishing village before King Afonso III built a new castle and fortifications around it in the 13th century. Caminha later prospered as a trading and shipbuilding town, and its old walled centre still shows that medieval layout. A place with history, then. It’s quite handsome as you walk in

though there is the usual sprinkling of scruffiness which may or may not indicate an abandoned building. This building was certainly not abandoned

A statue pays tribute to its fishing history.

I captured the photo below as a grab shot as we walked along;

I’m not sure if the lady is a peregrina walking her pony, or whether she’s just dressed like one. You decide.

The historic centre is small but well-formed

To the left in the photo above, the Clock Tower (Torre do Relógio) is the last remaining structure of the 13th-century town walls, built under Afonso III. Originally a defensive gate-tower guarding the southern entrance to the citadel, it only became known as the “clock tower” after a clock was installed in 1673. It stands guard over a square with plenty of opportunities for rest, relaxation and refreshment.

We looked in at our hotel, the invitingly-named Design and Wine Hotel, but we were a couple of hours too early for them to have a room available, so we wandered the town for a bit and then had lunch at the hotel.

Walking through the arch in the clockhouse takes one into the main historic street.

You can tell it’s historic because it’s very grey. Off to the side we saw a vintage, rather than historic sight;

an old Riley 4/72, a car from the ’60s.  This one had left-hand drive and so was clearly a naturalised automotive citizen, but as we’d walked in we’d been passed by a MG Midget in a fetching shade of blue which was a right-hand drive (i.e. UK spec) car. Coincidence? Or maybe there’s something of a collector living around these here parts?

At the bottom of this old street is the main church, dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Assunção, and it’s a very impressive piece of masonry.

It stands inside the old walls where a smaller Romanesque chapel once stood. It was built between 1488 and 1556 entirely of local granite, with the typical northern-Portuguese three-nave plan, and wonderful 16th-century polychrome tiles above the arcades of the central nave.

The elaborately carved main portal, with Manueline stonework, is one of its highlights.

The cars parked outside it demonstrated that there was a mass going on, but it ended as we watched and so we were able to go inside for a short while after it had emptied.

The ceiling of the main nave is an impressive piece of carving,

and a side chapel is dedicated to seafarers

as you can tell from the ships suspended in it.

We were politely ushered out after a few minutes of our gawping, and so we headed back towards the hotel and lunch, via another church, the Igreja da Misericórdia,

which has – oh, goodness me! – a Eucharistic Throne!

The ceiling over the altar is very striking,

and the organ has some horizontal pipes,

and, I think, a pigeon nesting in it.

We had a decent lunch at the hotel, though, rather disappointingly for a hotel bearing its name, it didn’t have any white port in stock, so Jane had to make do with a tawny port & tonic, which was OK but not as good as the real thing. The food was good but it became clear that there were staff pressures; our waitress had to deal single-handedly with an entire dining room and the receptionist appeared to be rather harrassed. We eventually got into our room, which looks spiffy but closer examination shows it to be rather fading and in need of tarting up a bit. We’d seen all the things that were (a) worth seeing and (b) open, so relaxed for the rest of the day. As the afternoon came to a close, it was lovely to see and hear the sparrows and other small birds as they came and went and twittered about in the creeper festooning the walls of the hotel which face an inner garden. They were swooping right outside our window, presumably making preparations for roosting for the night.

We have a shortish – 15km – walk to do tomorrow, and Accuweather is making rumbling noises about thunderstorms in the morning. So we will probably make a later departure, once again with rain jackets close at hand. Come back in due course to find out if we got struck by lightning.

 

 

Day 28 – Balugães to Ponte de Lima: A good “Camino” day

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Thursday 24 September 2026 – Although the forecast temperature wasn’t that high – 27° – we decided to make a really early start anyway, as this would get us the 19km or so to Ponte de Lima with time to spare to allow for some Things To Do. Accordingly we found ourselves outside Casas do Rio, breakfasted and ready to walk at – yup – 0625.

This means that we had the chance to create lots of glorious dawn images which I can now smugly share with you (we did wonder if the particularly intense colours might be a result of the smoke from the fire I mentioned yesterday, which is still apparently active, although does not seem to be getting worse…)

We were reminded before too long of the task in front of us

and we enjoyed watching the countryside come awake as we walked along.

Although it was, frankly, a bit chilly, the white covering of the fields is not frost. It’s a lime-based dressing intended to reduce the acidity of the soil after the (largely corn or maize) crops had been harvested.

The whole day had an even stronger Camino vibe to it than yesterday; plenty of other pilgrims (including this lady,

who had gone for the Camino branding big time), plenty of pilgrim-related statuary,

some nice waymarking,

coffee stops at comfortable intervals (including this one, which was full of locals having their breakfast caffeine injection),

pilgrim-related items by the wayside,

and, towards Ponte de Lima, the (allegedly) only open Santiago Chapel on the Caminho Português,

with, outside it, a lovely azulejo

about, and I quote, “D. Teresa passing trought Correlha, Ponte de Lima, on pilgrimage…”. Shame about the typo, but she was the mother of the first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, so it is actually a matter of both pith and moment that she undertook the Caminho.

Although it was definitely chilly to start with, the weather was a delight for almost all of the walk, and we saw some appealing scenes along the way.

The medieval Ponte da Senhora das Neves

An unsual sight on the Caminhos – given a choice of directions, the correct one is downhill, for a change

An astonishing profusion of sweet chestnut windfalls lining a long stretch of road

A very pleasant walk, then, right up to within a kilometre of Ponte de Lima; we took a diversionary turn for a couple of important items, which extended the walk somewhat. The first thing we had to do was to address a serious issue: the impending lack of Earl Grey tea. Courtesy of the lovely Jessica, we still had some of Twinings Finest Earl Grey, but we could see a time when we wouldn’t. Knowing that her supply came from the Auchan at Coimbra, Jane had carefully researched Auchans en route and there’s one on the outskirts of Ponte de Lima, so we diverted – up hill and down dale – for about a quarter of an hour.

The best laid plans….. Not only did they not stock any Twinings, they didn’t have any Earl Grey at all!

We personfully swallowed our disappointment, and started to head off to the other Thing To Do when I spotted that there was a large Continente nearby. Continente, you’ll remember, was the source of our first emergency transfusion of Earl Grey, so we approached this one with hope in our hearts and – some success! Not Twinings, but Liptons; not perfect, but perfectly decent.

So now we only had one more task, which was to visit another Bordalo II which Jane had found out about. Another ten minutes took us to it, and…

my goodness! What a thing!

It’s a shame that fencing didn’t allow an entirely unrestricted view, but it’s an impressive sight, and well worth the detour.

Ten more minutes got us to our hotel, the InLima Hotel and Spa. We were early and our room wouldn’t be available for a couple of hours, so we left our backpacks at the hotel and walked the short distance to the river bank, where I got my first view of the bridge that gives the town its name.

We walked along towards the bridge and took lunch at one of the many restaurants that border the river. Then we went for a walk. Obviously.

There are a couple of sculptures by the river bank – local folk traditions

and a celebration of agricultural life.

The Torre de San Paolo is part of the original defensive walls of the city, here displaying a banner for a festival which we’ve just missed.

It also sports an azulejo

depicting the Legend of Cabração, a misunderstanding by Afonso Henrique’s troops who mistook a cloud of dust for oncoming enemy troops when actually it was caused by a herd of goats. Beside the azulejo is a more sober thing

flood markings, showing the level of flooding in the river and the year it happened.

We reached the bridge

and walked across it. From the bridge, one can see a couple of odd things, on left and right banks:

On one bank, a line of metal Roman soldiers stands at attention as if waiting to be called.
Across the river on the opposite bank, a statue depicts General Decimus Junius Brutus astride his horse, facing his troops. These commemorate the 138 BC legend telling of how the General  convinced his terrified legionaries to cross the Lima River, which they feared was the mythical River Lethe (the river of forgetfulness), by riding his horse across to the opposite bank safely. He then called out to his men individually by their first names to prove that his memory was completely intact, giving them the courage to cross. This legend is also commemorated by an azulejo on one of the town buildings.

The church on the other side of the bridge is the church of Santo Antonio.

Beside the church are various items of religious and Camino-y pith and moment, not the least of which is this bust of St. James himself.

Inside the church is (yet) another Eucharistic Throne;

we keep coming across them, despite their alleged banning by the Papacy.

Back over in the town, there are two churches of note. The Misericordia church was hosting the build up to a funeral, so we couldn’t look in, but the parish church

with its very elaborate portal

was open.

In the square by the church is a statue of a bull.

This honours the famous local Vaca das Cordas tradition, an open-air running of the bull that dates back to 1646 and takes place annually on the eve of Corpus Christi.

By the time we’d lunched and obviously walked, it was 3pm so we could get into our hotel room. The walk back took us along the Avenida dos Platanos,

a very pleasant stretch of riverside walk flanked by (Jane counted them) 88 glorious old London Plane trees, mostly planted in 1901 (we noticed a couple of young trees, obviously replacements). While Jane relaxed, I took the drone back to the bridge and whizzed it up for a couple of photos and a video.

The light was right for a couple of pictures of the town from the bridge, too – it’s an attractive place.

Jane had heard that the bridge was illuminated at night, so after dark we walked out to take a look. Indeed it was, although we both think that it should be possible to do a better job somehow.

We also noted that the parish church was lit up like a Christmas tree, presumably for the Feiras Novas just past.

10/10 for effort, but lower marks for artistic merit, we think. The plane trees looked good, though.

So, that was Ponte de Lima, a handsome town at the end of a good day’s walking. On the morrow, we plan to head back to the Coastal trail for the final days to the Spanish border and on to Santiago. I’ll regale you with all that in due course.

Day 27 – Barcelos to Balugães: Plan and reality coincide

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Wednesday 23 September 2026 – According to Garmin, the distance we had to cover today was 16.2km. According to Accuweather, the pattern of the day’s temperatures would be this:

Not as disastrously hot as previous days, but still worth Getting On With It. An estimated four hours of walking plus an hour of buggering about taking coffee and photos suggested that getting out at around 7.30am would get us to our destination, near Belugães, before the temperatures peaked. The hotel offered breakfast from 7am, and we were ready!

So, it seemed, were a load of others.

Everyone waited patiently outside the door to the breakfast room until Jane suggested seeing if it was open – which it was. This meant that we could set off at around 7.35am with a reasonably good breakfast fuelling us.

At the edge of Barcelos town centre is a statue of a Peregrina.

Frankly, it’s difficult to tell from her body language and facial expression what’s going on: celebrating arrival? hailing a taxi? being unable to understand where to go next? You decide.

The waymarking for the day was good, albeit varied. A formal waymark gave us useful information,

a less formal one at least told us we were on the right track,

as did an official one

and there were a couple of fancy ones later on, too.

We caught sight of our final cock as we exited Barcelos;

note the background here – I shall return to it later.

It was still reasonably early – before 8.30am – and there was a lot of mist around, which lent itself to a few attractive landscape creations,

but not all views were misty.

There were things we’ve seen on previous days, like the front porch and steps up to the bells at this church, the parish church of São João Baptista in Vila Boa;

a lavadouro, this one from, it would seem, as recently as 1964;

and some we hadn’t, such as this mural which was a Portuguese variant of the “Stars of Estrella” murals we saw when we walked the Camino Francés,

and this pair of boots

which probably have a story to tell, but which were silent as we passed.

The Camino vibe was strong again, with peregrinos behind and ahead of us as we walked a cobbled road and made an informal railway crossing,

and the first coffee stop after 5km was doing good business, not least because it was the last café for several more kilometres.

It, too, was strong on Camino vibes.

Beside the trail further along was this interesting noticeboard;

a list (not exhaustive, of course, but interesting) of some key albergues along the section of the Caminho Português north of Porto. I guess it would be possible to plan your entire route from it, although some of the stages would be rather long – and, these days, I’d suggest that there was a possibility that some of them were no longer active.

The route northwards was pleasant, mainly tarmac or cobbles, and wended through various villages, some small, some larger – but none with a coffee stop. Here are some things we passed.

A mobile fish shop (with a loud siren!)

A UK Government outpost?

Interestingly topiaried olive trees, which turned out to be an advert for a landscape gardening firm

Even at 10am, still some mist in the valleys

At around the 7 km mark, the road started on a gentle, but relentless, climb

which carried on for the next 2.5km; you can see the saddle between two hills that the road was heading for.

Looking to our left, we could see the scar and new planting resulting from eucalyptus logging activity;

this is actually the same scar we saw in the background to the Last Cock of Barcelos photo.

A couple of houses on the way up had decorated their walls

and one had made a fetching garden installation from the pedras de calçada that are elsewhere used to make pavements.

There were some nice rural views on the way up,

an attractive church

and an appropriately named cemetery.

Having reached the top, we then headed back down again, into a small town called Aborim which had a big (and Interestingly modern) church, Igreja Paroquial de Nossa Senhora de Fátima de Aborim. It wasn’t open, of course.

As we looked beyond its cross, we could see not mist, but smoke.

Consulting Google Maps told us that this was from a severe fire in the Viano do Castelo region. This was to our north west, and we got increasingly clear views of the scale of the fire as we walked along.

We also caught sight of Belugães, some 5km away

but first, having gone about 12km, we awarded ourselves a coffee stop in the intriguingly-named café Rosa Cintilante.

I immediately thought of this as “Scintillating Rosie’s Caff”, but it actually translates as “shimmering pink”. Anyway, it was a welcome break, and a chance to chat to three Texans who were passing through at the same time as us.

The rest of the day’s walk took us past a couple of interesting items: a bird posing for its portrait

(my telephone told me that it was quite probably a Northern Wheatear, because my telephone knows these things); and a modern construction that looked very much like an espiguero.

To get to our accommodation, Casas do Rio, we had to cross a couple of bridges, only one of which was easily visible, the Ponte das Tábuas, a medieval construction over the River Neiva, serving the old road from Öporto to Valença.

This bridge has been documented since 1135, originally called portum de thabulis which
suggests that the original building was made of wood and was remodeled to its current construction more recently. The other bridge was the Caridade Bridge, which crosses the Nevoinho stream, which in turn is the river near which our destination, the Casas do Rio, stand. It’s supposed to be elegant, but it’s small and overgrown, and it was hot

and we wanted to get to our accommodation and rest.

Jane tugged at the bell rope and the sound caused whoever was inside using the hoover to stop and come out to see what the noise was about. She in turn called for Lucia, the lady in charge, who was delightfully helpful, ushering us towards the honesty bar,

equipping us with beer and telling us how things worked here, which was useful, since the information we’d had thus far really didn’t tell us what to expect. How things worked was exceedingly flexible – Lucia showed us the menu of food available, which was simple but good, and we agreed what time we wanted to eat.

The distance we’d walked was just under 16.5km, almost exactly in line with our expectations; it took us five hours  in total, of which we spent four actually walking; and the temperature when we arrived was exactly what the forecast said it would be. We love it when a plan comes together.

It was just after 12.30 when we arrived and Lucia had our room ready for us in a jiffy, so we could relax until our early dinner, which suited us rather well, us being hot and tired and that. Our room was, indeed, a commodious chamber

with some lovely decorative touches, including a tiny model espigueiro

and this wonderfully retro sound system.

We had dinner on the lawn of this rather lovely place

 

and were able to retire early to relax and prepare for the morning.

We have 19km to go tomorrow, to reach Ponte do Lima. The murderous heat of the previous days is – at last! – forecast to give way to something that is merely sultry; about 27°C at most. However, it still seems a good idea to get away betimes, as walking in the relative cool of the early morning is very pleasant. So Lucia has provided a packed breakfast for us in our room so that we can depart when we like. I’m rather looking forward to Ponte do Lima – it should be an interesting place and I hope I’ll be able to fly the drone there, too. Stay tuned to see how things turn out.