Wanting to walk Camino Portugues

[ready2walk]

I just seen the movie "The Way" and this is exactly something I am looking forward to doing alone.

I will have about 14-17 days for travel, walking and rest time. I just ordered the book "A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago"

I have a few questions, and if anyone has any other suggestions or comments it would be great.

1. Best airport to fly into and out of.

2. Best transportation once you land, bus or train?

3. Are all the hostels/hotels safe to stay?

4. Is the trip fairly safe to take alone?

5. I have hiked throughout Arizona, Nevada, Kentucky, Tennessee, Grand Canyon, etc...in all different conditions, but have never camped. I will do more reading on what to take. But any thing that could easily be overlooked?

6. How much cash do you take, and what currency?

7. Can you get by with mostly english spoken language, or should spanish be learned?

8. Again, I am a novice when it comes to this type of backpacking. I am looking for a trip possibly in March/April. Possibly sooner, but a Jan hike could be brutal weather conditions.

Thanks in advance for the comments!

 

[Red1too3]

I just seen the movie "The Way" and this is exactly something I am looking forward to doing alone.

I have been working on this route for a long time! I hope I can help out with a few answers.

1. Best airport to fly into and out of. (It all depends on cost and how you plan to get around and where you are starting from. There are trains running throughout Portugal, Lisbon is a large airport)

2. Best transportation once you land, bus or train? trains are always good, just depends on preference.

3. Are all the hostels/hotels safe to stay? (I will let others respond their thoughts on this but from all I know, read, seen, they are safe!)

4. Is the trip fairly safe to take alone? Nice thing about the Caminos - that's the point, you are really never alone but it is safe by yourself.

5. I have hiked throughout Arizona, Nevada, Kentucky, Tennessee, Grand Canyon, etc...in all different conditions, but have never camped. I will do more reading on what to take. But any thing that could easily be overlooked?

6. How much cash do you take, and what currency? Currency is Euro, Alburques are not extremely expensive, hotels are more so, so depends on where you will stay and how you plan to eat.

7. Can you get by with mostly english spoken language, or should spanish be learned? Many understand English, Portuguese is spoken through Portugal and Spanish in Spain (obviously), but it is nice to be able to communicate in their language while in their country.

8. Again, I am a novice when it comes to this type of backpacking. I am looking for a trip possibly in March/April. Possibly sooner, but a Jan hike could be brutal weather conditions. It can be rainy and cold until around May. We are going in September of 2012 because it isn't too hot, rainy season has not kicked in, and there aren't as many pilgrims.

I hope this helps a bit!

 

[jelle]

Hi ready2walk,

I have walked this road and I can greatly recommend it to anyone interested in the camino.

First of all I think 14-17 days is plenty. I walked from Porto to Santiago in 10 days.

1)There is an airport in Oporto. Ryan air has flights on it from Brussels. I don't know where you are flying from but if you come from the US it might be a good idea to fly to Brussels and than transfer to Brussels south and take a Ryan air flight.
Ryan air also flighs from Paris to Oporto...

2) In Spain and Portugal Busses rule: Long distance busses like alsa and eurolines deliver a good and pricefriendly service.

3)Yes, and you can always stay with the bombeiros(firemen) when you don't thrust a place.

4)Yes!!

5) Don't take a tent, personally I even found my sleeping mat to be dead weight.

6)I think in total I spent around 300 €. Bring euros. However you probably can make withdrawels even with an american card (but check with your bank)

7)You can get by with only english. The Portuguese speak very good english.

Hope these comments help you a bit!!!

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi ready2walk,

Welcome to the forum. If I'm not mistaken, you are the first person on this forum to say that it's seeing The Way that has been the catalyst for your plan to walk the Camino. I'm suspecting there will be a lot of you, because when I went to see the show, I spoke afterwards with at least a dozen people who had similar reactions!

If you want to walk for more than the 10 days from Porto to Santiago, you could add on a few days further south. If you start in Coimbra, which is a very nice city with Portugal's oldest university, a romanesque cathedral, beautiful old town, you could arrive in Porto in 5 days. That's give you a total of 15 days. You should check out the online guides published by the Confraternity of St. James, at this website, http://www.csj.org.uk/guides-online.htm Many of the authors/editors/contributors are members of this forum.

You've got a lot of caminos to choose from. I'm curious as to why you would choose the Portugues as your first camino rather than the camino The Way shows. Not that I think it's a bad idea, I'm just curious.

You've gotten good answers to your other questions, so I won't duplicate those wise words.

Buen camino, Laurie

 

[spik23]

Your questions are very broad, and it is hard to answer Yes/No without knowing more detailed facts.
It is you, who has to have a vision and desire. From my point of view I will answer this:

1) Oporto
2) Feet
3) Absolutely Yes
4) Absolutely Yes
5) All the places you hiked were within US only. This one will be your fisrt abroad experience.
6) 500 euros
7) English is ok, but spanish/portugese opens the door.
8) --

 

[jeff001]

Random thoughts:
This is not like backpacking or camping out. You should not have to sleep or fix meals except under the most dire - and extremely rare - conditions so you don't need to bring things for that. Use your guidebook to plan so that you can stop by midafternoon.
There are ATMs in just about every town you will go through so there is no need to bring or carry a lot of money.

 

[bactman]

ready2walk,

I completed the Camino Portugues last year and pretty much agree with everyone here.

#1: I flew into Porto via Ryanair from Madrid, and used their metro to ride to a pension off Rue Cedofeita. After completing the Camino, I flew Ryanair from Santiago to Madrid - no problems either leg. I presume you are coming from the states, so Madrid is probably the best major airport to fly into and out of for returning back.

2#: Ryanair. Cheaper and quicker than buses or trains. You can check Easyjet or another low cost/no frills carrier, but I prefer flying compared to buses or trains.

3#: The hostels/hotels were outstanding along the way. I preferred to stay in hotels/pensions when in Spain, as the albergues were overcrowded (Padron, Caldas de Rais especially!). Then again, it was a holy year and foot traffic was up. I traveled with a DSLR and didn't have any issues with theft along the way.

4#: I walked solo through Portugal before joining my wife and mother-in-law in Spain. I never felt like I was in danger or anything like that along the way. Portugal was quiet and often you are hiking by yourself. You may see a few other peregrinos along the way, but you are pretty much by yourself. Different story in Spain - more foot traffic, more peregrinos along the way.

5#: Don't worry about camping. I assume you have a warm weather mummy bag - that is pretty much the only camping gear you would need. I took a cotton bag liner and silk insert and used them in lieu of a sleeping bag.

6#: Euros, probably spend around 20-30 a day (coffee con leite, bocadillo, meno do dia with lotsa wine) and albergue donation. I'd carry 2 days worth, but you always walk through a town where banks are aplenty. You can also use a credit card along the way if needed.

7#: My Spanish wasn't very good, but passable. I tried to learn some Portuguese and that helped more than my broken Spanish. It would also help to learn some basic German, due to the number of Germans you'll probably encounter along the way.

8#: If that early, rain gear! I hiked in September, and had three straight days of rain out of Porto.

Feel free to pm me with any questions about my trip if you would like some other info. Cheers, and enjoy!