Hi all
Just an update on what we walked and how it went:
Flew into Porto airport, took the tram to Vila do Conde and stayed in Erva Doce, very simple to do.
Walked the Littoral from the front door of Erva Doce (basically, keep the sea on your left) up through Povoa and stayed in the Juventude in Fao, just before Esposende. This is mainly on boardwalks, with the last third through parkland. had downloaded Wikiloc and familiarised myself with Christian Jensen's saved trail, so had a fairly good idea of where to go.
From Fao, walked to Viana do Costelo and stayed in Dona Emilia. A fantastic place, stay there if you can.
The walk, however, seemed to guide you around every town/village it could and not through. It became tiresome looking at people's back gardens for so much of the time.
For these first two days, there were very few pilgrims and not much camino atmosphere that you would associate with the Frances. The Portuguese along this route I found a bit distant and cold, which surprised me given the comments I had read previously on here about the warm welcomes travellers had received. "Bom Dia" and "Boa Tarde" had to be dragged out of locals who were walking past you in a small village, unusual to an Irishman used to a nod-of-the-head at the very least from everyone. The language is very hard to grasp, but the level of English is good in shops, bars etc. Waymarking was no trouble at all. Level of littering throughout these two days everywhere was, quite frankly, shocking. It looked like nobody cleans anywhere, and I'm not talking toilet-tissue stuff. We walked past dead cats, household refuse and innumerable plastic bottles and cigarette packs.
We had planned to walk the Ecovia to connect with Ponte de Lima, but circumstances changed and ended up getting a bus.
Arrived in Ponte de Lima on a Monday evening after a festival week, I think, and was shocked at the condition the river-front was in following the market. We glumly headed for food, disappointed at what had been described at the prettiest town in Portugal suffering from the same lack of care that we had seen the previous day. However, by 10pm as we left our meal, the place was transformed. By night, with the rubbish cleared and the ancient streets lit up, it lived up to its billing.
The next morning, in glorious sunshine and with a much bigger cohort of fellow walkers, we crossed the bridge into a day of fabulous camino. The stretch from Ponte de Lima is classic Frances, through countryside laden with fruit, history and fabulous woodlands & rivers.
We stayed in Rubaies, encountering a mild bit of bed-availability anxiety. Not the liveliest of spots, we ended up needing to get transport to a restaurant and back.
We finished up in Valenca, a lovely walk and a fine town to spend a little bit of time in. Again, saw some late-comers struggling to find reasonably-priced accommodation, although there was no shortage of beds.
After this, we took a train at 0830 to Porto, which takes about 2 hours and spent an afternoon and evening exploring this absolutely gorgeous city.
In all, if you are looking for a camino after the Frances, I would say we were a little disappointed by the Portuguese we chose. Certainly, the Littoral/Coastal was a little too quiet for my tastes, I liked the camaraderie of the Frances and missed the conversations with strangers. From Ponte de Lima, the numbers picked up, although those who had walked the Central from Porto bemoaned the first stretch out of Porto, which is why we chose the Coastal. The waymarking is excellent everywhere, no worries around this at all. English is spoken everywhere the camino goes, which helps if you're Portuguese is like mine and non-existent.
Food I found was much better in Portugal, although there is a sameness to the menus at the pilgrim's menu level of pricing. Portion sizes are huge, you'll certainly not starve.
Hope this helps anyone pondering whether to start the Caminho Portuguese. It is not a criticism, just an honest reflection of how our week went. Still think there is no "definitive" Portuguese walk, each of the 3 parts we went on has it's positives but there is an element of picking and choosing still to be done by the individual.
Emaol
