I slept on the top bunk last night, in our room for two. It’s the first time on the top bunk since the last Camino. Normally they don’t bother me, but last night was uncomfortable. Quite late in the evening the heating in the room turned on, which was quite nice at the time, as it had become rather chilly. However it stayed on all night, with the result that I was rather hot, not sleeping too well.
We had opted to have breakfast at the albergue this morning, at a very reasonable €2.5 each. We didn’t expect to have anything much more than coffee and bread with possibly some jam or marmalade for that price, but we were presented, instead, with a feast. We had a choice of color meats, cheeses, cereals, various fresh fruits, different breads etc. And excellent coffee, the best in Portugal so far. Very good value.
Les set off at about 8am and was soon followed by a Danish lady that we hadn’t met before, but who is doing a solo Camino. We later met her again, briefly, out on the trail.
Today started out with nice weather and we both chose to walk without our legs on. The removable legs of our walking trousers of course. Barbara removed hers a day or so ago, but I only removed mine yesterday. It is much cooler in the warm weather we’ve had over the last couple of days.
Looking back at our albergue from last night we were glad that today’s walk didn’t start with the long climb that we finished with yesterday
Our route today gave us two options, one was to walk to Albergeria-A-Velha, a distance of about 16kms or go on to the next town adding another 7kms or so. We opted for the shorter distance, partly to allow us time for washing/drying etc. Our social late afternoon and evening yesterday was very nice but it meant that some things we needed to do didn’t get done, so a short day today should help.
Shortly after leaving our albergue we were walking through an industrial area, and not too sure about the way the route went, when a young woman came to us and asked, in good English, if we needed directions. She, she claimed, was also a Camino pilgrim, having walked to Santiago a year or two back and she envied what we were doing. She was just on her way to work and decided to help. “The Camino will provide”, goes the legend.
Our route today was, again, very nice countryside. One or two hilly stretches, as is normal around here, but very pleasant. On one stretch we walked along what is claimed to be a Roman route, now bypassed by a modern road, which suddenly became a very long many arched low bridge over a large lake on one side leading to the river on the the other side.
It is a beautiful place, lots of bird, and frog, songs to entertain you. Up to fairly recently this part of the trail continued across over the river on a higher-arched old (Roman) bridge. This is no longer possible as the centre arch collapsed into the river some time ago. Instead the route now crosses the valley by means of a very modern, very high bridge.
This gives great views down into the village below, and also saves a lot of descent and ascent across the valley. Shortly after the end of the modern bridge we rejoined the old trail to walk through some more eucalyptus forest and on to our destination town.
There are one or two places to stay here, but we decided to stay at the local pension, the “Casa da Alameda”. This has obviously been a very upmarket place in the past, the long past. It’s a decidedly funny place, a snapshot of sometime between Victorian and 1950s. There seem to be lots of bedrooms that are simply storage for assorted furniture and fittings, with staircases that should lead elsewhere but are now cordoned off by strategically placed armchairs. Everywhere is either very dark-brown wood furniture and muddy cream walls, or is painted dark-brown to match the woodwork. But we have our own room and bathroom. We did have to request that the heating be put on as it was decidedly chilly.
Anyway we’ve had a restful and useful afternoon, and as a fortunate side-effect, missed walking in some very heavy rain that occurred not long after we arrived. This evening we had a short stroll around the centre of town finding a rather good cafe for our breakfast tomorrow. The place is run by a local man who lived for some time in Montreal in Canada where he learned his English, amongst the French of course. But he was very eager to practice English again and refused any attempt by us to try any of our very sparse Portuguese. ” I must practice my English before I forget it ” he claimed. He also repeatedly said “You are very welcome here”, something that we’ve noticed all over Portugal so far.
Another Wander Along The Camino 