Tag Archives: Valença

Day 34 – Valença: Rest (and drone) day

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Wednesday 30 September 2026 – It was rather nice not to have the imperative of getting up in time to hand our bags over for collection, so we took things fairly easy; also, the rain hadn’t cleared from the previous day. As we went to our leisurely breakfast, we could see people walking the walls of the Fortaleza dressed for inclement weather – and we couldn’t see much beyond that through the mist and rain!

However, it’s not in our Jane’s nature to be utterly lazy, so when the rain stopped we went out for a short walk, which is pretty much the only kind you’ll get if you stay within the Fortaleza. The most important thing was to get a selo from the Tourist Office. Unsurprisingly, the stamp has the Fortaleza as its motif; and the tourist office has on its wall an overview of the fortifications

which was very much an appetiser for me, as I wanted to see if I could get some decent aerial photos and/or footage with the drone. In going to the tourist office, we passed an elegant and beautiful church

dedicated to the elegant and beautifully-named Saint, erm, Stephen. It’s a Romanesque number which had been reconstructed in neoclassical style in 1792. Inside

there appeared to be a surprising number of Eucharistic Thrones – two to be precise.

We treated ourselves to coffee and pastries at the (rather crowded and claustrophobic) café in the main square. In fairness it was crowded because all the outside seating was soaking wet from the earlier rain…

The cafe had a rather nice set of azulejos at the far end.

Then we headed back through the crowded streets to our hotel. As well as being on the Caminho, the town is clearly and quite reasonably a popular tourist destination, and there were coach tours aplenty unloading punters while we were in the Tourist Office. We took the opportunity to get some more photos of the fortifications visible from the environs of the hotel.

Then, as Jane relaxed in our room, I headed out with the drone to see what I could capture. The Fortaleza is one kilometre from end to end, if you include the actual earthworks and fortifications; the maximum range I am allowed to send the drone out is 500m, so it should theoretically be possible to capture images all the way round if you stand somewhere reasonably central; and we’d identified a quiet spot on the walls near the middle of the Forteleza which looked promising. And so it proved; I came back with some stills and video and was reasonably happy with them. I spent an hour or so tinkering with them, during which time the weather improved somewhat, so I went out again and had another go. I took a few stills, but this is the one I like most.

If you have five minutes to spare, then you might like to watch the video that I was able to capture; it’s a 360° fly-round and I hope it gives a good impression of the imposing scale of the fortifications, as well as showing that the Fortaleza is really two fortifications, with the lower one protecting the higher one from a landside attack.

I really was delighted to have got the stills and video; it’s a wonderful location for this kind of video and makes it worthwhile having brought the drone with me.

Thus satisfied, we went to the hotel bar for a drink and a snack lunch and the improved weather gave us a good view over the river Minho and the border with Spain to Tui, through which we’ll be walking tomorrow.

Why they named the town after a travel company is anyone’s guess*, but the place has an awe-inspiring cathedral,

which I hope we’ll be able to visit as we walk through the town.

jane discovered that we’d missed something of pith and moment, a Roman milestone, which was just outside St. Stephens Church, so we went back out.

According to its infoboard it was adapted as a pillory after being transferred from its original location in 1860. The inscription reads “TI(berius) CLAUDIUS. CAESAR AUG(gustus) GERMANICUS / PONTIFEX. MAX(imus). IMP(erator) V / CO(n)S(ul) III, TRIB(unicia) POTEST(ate), / III, P(ater) P(atriae) BRACA(ra) / XLII”. Its original purpose was to mark 42 (Roman) miles from Braga to Tui and was built by Emperor Claudius when he made improvements to Via IV of the Antonine Itinerary.

We also visited the Bom Jesus Church, outside which is a statue of São Teotónio, who was the first Portuguese Saint and after whom our Pousada is named.

We returned to the hotel for the rest of the day, during which time the weather really brightened up,

which augurs well for resuming the walking thing tomorrow.

Because tomorrow is October 1st – new month, new country, new language, new time zone. We will cross into Spain (one hour ahead of Portugal) to complete our journey to Santiago de Compostela – seven more stages and 120km to go. Tui is the Caminho Português equivalent of Sarría on the Camino Francés – the 100km point, walking from which qualifies one for a Compostela. Three years ago, I found the crowds and and the babble on the walk from Sarría very difficult to adjust to; it will be interesting to see how these final kilometres of the Português are by comparison.

 

* Any fule kno there is no connection between the travel outfit owned by the German company Touristik Union International – TUI – and the Spanish town of the coincidentally identical name.

Day 33 – Vila Nova de Cerveira to Valença: another flat day

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9Tuesday 29 September 2026 – Even before we went to bed last night, it was clear that the wind was getting stronger. As we went to breakfast, strong gusts were whistling through the trees and bushes in the garden at the Quinta. It wasn’t raining, though, so we decided to get out and get walking as soon as we could after finishing our breakfast; we were out on the Caminho before 9am. As – I’m prepared to bet money on this – you probably guessed, we decided we would take the riverside, less hilly, walk to our destination, Valença, which would be around 17km away. It was a grey, blustery day,

and we were keen to get to our destination before any rain came along. Our route to the riverside led us past some of the sights of the town: some more faces on murals;

inexplicable artwork;

(this reminds me of the old weather forecasting stone joke: “stone wet: raining; stone swinging: windy; stone gone: hurricane), as well as what is quite an attractive town centre.

There’s a handsome twin-spire church, the Mother Church of the town,

and, yes, it has a Eucharistic Throne.

We had been under something of a misapprehension about these thrones, thinking that they had been banned by the Papacy. In fact, they haven’t – just that the rules about what should be displayed on top and when have been tightened. Management apologises for misleading you on that. The church also had some lovely modern stained glass.

Outside the church was yet another reminder about what lies in front of us.

As we were walking, I noticed, on a hillside, an odd protrusion,

and wasn’t sure whether it was an illusion formed by trees, or actually some kind of installation. Closer view (thank you, Samsung 30x magnification)

showed that it was, indeed, an installation, a representation of a stag. This caused Jane to wonder whether there was a link between the name of the town – Cerveira – and the French for “stag”, which is “cerf”. And indeed there is. “Cerveira” is associated with the Portuguese word “cervo”, which may have referred to a large herd of deer in the area. There’s also a complicated local legend about a King Stag and his one-to-one duel with a nobleman during the reconquista. Thus there is a huge sculpture by José Rodrigues, called “O Cervo” on the nearby Monte Encarnação.

Image courtesy of visitportugal on Instagram

Once we’d seen that, the stag theme became ubiquitous

Our route didn’t give us a decent view of the 17th-century Castelo de Vila Nova de Cerveira (which I couldn’t fly a drone over, you’ll remember), but we did pass near another fortification just outside the town,

the Forte de São Francisco de Lovelhe. We couldn’t easily get any closer, so had to make do with this glimpse. Going past this fort led us back down to the ecopista that we’d been on yesterday, and so we yomped along that almost all the way to Valença. We thought we’d caught the authorities out in a logical impossibility with the signage

before we realised that the cyclist in on the signpost is wearing a motorbiking helmet. Still, it’s interesting that horse and cart were forbidden on the track. There wasn’t frankly, a lot of variety. We saw a bird-watching hide,

some gleaning going on in a harvested corn field by the track (there were a lot of these),

a stand of poplars and eucalyptus

and lots of acorns on the track.

It’s the acorn-falling time of year, I guess, and the blustery wind probably encouraged a few reluctant clingers-on to let go, as well. As we left Cerveira’s municipal area and entered Valença’s we passed a noticeboard which explained that EU money contributed a large amount to create the ecopista and its surroundings.

The Valença end of the ecopista was slightly less well-maintained

though to be fair, river bank erosion was clearly an issue in this area.

Eventually we came to the end of this section of the ecopista

and there was a section of boardwalk which repaid careful attention to footwork.

In the distance we could see Valença.

The path took us over the Ponte Medieval da Veiga de Mira

where we rejoined the formal Caminho track. The reeds beside this track demonstrated how blustery it was.

The Caminho track diverged from this ecopista-type surface

and we walked into the town past some bizarre votive offerings,

and encouragement

to the convergence point where the route we’ve been on, the Coastal, meets the Central. One would have expected some signage to mark this. One would be disappointed. This is all we found, by the roundabout where they meet.

However, there’s excitement on offer in the shape of the route through the “fortaleza”.

This is Valença’s USP – an entire and intact fortified city wall. The Fortaleza de Valença is one of Portugal’s great frontier fortifications, built and extensively strengthened in the 17th and 18th centuries to defend the northern frontier along the Minho river against Spain. It has a double enclosure surrounding the old town, with massive walls, bastions, gateways and deep defensive works. It remains remarkably intact and one of the things that I find really attractive is that it’s not in a restricted area for drone flying, so I might be able to get some lovely photos and/or videos of the place. My appetite has been whetted by the photo on that noticeboard.

The Caminho route into the Fortaleza is indicated by three stones

which are even older than Mick, Keef and Ronnie, but the paint job is from 2022, done by the Portuguese sculptor Dinis Ribeiro.

The Fortaleza is a really impressive piece of work.

and it leads through to the working town within,

with the inevitable tourist things to be seen,

as well as artworks such as this carnation – a symbol of the 1974 Portuguese “carnation revolution” which overthrew 48 years of the Estado Novo dictatorship and paved the way for modern democracy in Portugal.

The fortifications stretch across two fortified enclosures, so it was about a kilometre through this historic centre to our hotel, which is a Pousada,

the Pousada de São Teotónio. Many Pousadas across Portugal are in historic buildings; this one, though, dates from the 1960s. No matter, it is posh, the bar has both white port and gin, as we found out whilst waiting for our room to become available, and it is our home for the next couple of days as we have a rest day tomorrow! Yay!

Although our room wasn’t available when we arrived, other aspects of our timing were pretty good; The rain plainly decided not to stay in Spain, and headed over our way. It started raining soon after we arrived, and became torrential later on.

So we snuggled down for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, the forecast is much cheerier, so I suspect that the obvious thing for us to do is to go for a walk.