We have done 3 days of the walk now and clearly the mileages given are only very rough estimates. So far we have done 33, 21, and 29 miles yesterday. We are fortunate we bought the WISE Pilgrim app for our phones which has all of the ways clearly market and some take you out of the way by quite a bit. Yesterday we chose the coastal coastal part of the trail. All of the others seem to be given an app that has just the one main hike (by the company they booked with). We ARE meeting with more and more “pilgrims” as each day goes on.

Now THIS LITTLE item is for sale. It seemed like a mini castle amongst other “non castles”

We are finding that the food is the best we have ever had, at almost every restaurant. The meals you get in some very small town along the coast in a restaurant would clearly surpass what you might get in perhaps the finest restaurant Vancouver has to offer. However we ARE struggling with the portions. They ARE reported a little different in each place, but we are beginning to sort it out.

Every meal starts with a plate of breads as well as a small bowl of olives. The olives are always a bit different some in garlic, some in other herbs, some even a smoky kind of preparing. The breads are always a bit different as well. Even at the tiniest place along the trail, in the middle of nowhere they bring this ahead of a soup lunch. The olives are often in a bowl, with another bowl under it. I did not at first understand the purpose until I was “schooled” by the patron , she came out and brought out the underneath bowl and pointed at the pits I had put on my plate.

The portions are massive, but they offer 1/2 portions which seems to be even too much for us. A half portion divided by both of us is STILL usually too much. I would love to have take pictures of the dishes being taken to other tables as they are always a work of art, again, like the highest end place in a big city might have.

This was yesterdays, clearly not the best looking dish that came out of kitchen, but 2 very large pieces of Cod with prawns on top and these potato things… a cross between the “crisps’ what the British call chips, and French fries. But they are thicker and seemed to be baked.

We DID go through a deeper forest area yesterday. While I am an extremely slow walker, people pass me all the time, well this area was much more technical, with large rocks and steeper areas to get over, I guess my mushroom picking legs took over and I passed everyone …. then crossed this concrete bridge,… wondered if the river ever flows over it.

We are currently in Viana do Castelo, and spent the night before in Esposende. For the most part we are pretty thrilled with the accommodation. Large rooms with small beds, Large beds with small rooms etc.

We did have dinner included in our travel plan and wish we had not. The dinners are usually quite late, 7:30 pm, and as we tend to be early eaters, we are especially early eaters after a whole day of walking. So usually we have eaten all of the snacks in our packs by the time dinner comes. They meals provided at these sorts of place are OK< but do not measure up to the restaurants we hit at lunch time.

Although we are putting in a lot of miles/km each day, we are doing OK. By the time we get to our lodging, we are tuckered out, but rest over night and ready to go the next day. Ken works on his feet each night, attempting to prevent blisters in the sore spots. My feet are pretty good so far. I guess my biggest issue that really affects the trip is the colitis I have. It’s a matter all day of finding the next bathroom. There are some public “WC” along the way, but nowhere near what I need. SO this is likely the reason we end up having such extravagant lunches. We likely would not see this cuisine were we not needing a bathroom at the particular time. So I guess it is all OK from that perspective.

The hardest part of the hike so far is crossing the bridge into Viana do Castelo. It is apparently 650 meters long and was built in 1878, designed by Gustave Eiffel. It is not really much to look at, and hard to believe it is that old. But it IS a very busy bridge with almost continual traffic…..and a narrow path.. and no border to the traffic

This picture does not fully depict how scary it was, especially when the busses came over and we noticed the bus driver was talking on his phone EEEK.😱. I white knuckled it over all 650 meters. Of course it was named after Eiffel, after all, it was the same Eiffel as the more well known eiffel tower.

Well we are off to walk day 4, which is supposed to be 16 KM, we shall see how we can screw that one up.

Thanks for reading, Janet and Ken. This guy came to the fence to say hi.