Lisbon to Porto

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Here's a post I made on the Camino Forum website. It contains some observations on walking so far:



Having now walked Lisbon to Porto, I think it's time for me to pass some judgements on what I've experienced so far.<br style="margin-top: 0px; color:𢡦 font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.533332824707px; background-color: #fcfcff;" /><br style="color:𢡦 font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.533332824707px; background-color: #fcfcff;" />General Observations
<ol style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 3em; padding: 0px; color:𢡦 font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.533332824707px; background-color: #fcfcff;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Road walking - yes there is some - but not as much on BUSY roads as I had been led to believe. What I would say is that if FEELS like a lot of the bad road walking is at the end of days as you come into towns (I'm looking at you Azambuja and Golega). I think if there was one change I would make about the routes it would be trying to find alternatives to these.<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Signage - WAY better than I was expecting. There has been major work by either towns or by the Via Lusitana or both and the are many, many markings (including granite way-markings and camino symbols with arrows) that go beyond the painted yellow arrows. This has in general meant very little stress about finding the routes, HOWEVER...<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">The 'Official' routes (that is, those shown by the signs) is often significantly different to that which is in either the Brierley book or the CSJ guide available from this website. In some cases (see below) this has resulted in significantly longer walking days than are comfortable and in others some anxiety about where you are.<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Early on the 'Official' distances seem very low compared to what we walked each day.<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Accomodation and food - accomodation has not been an issue and the albergues are generally WAY better than expectation. I don't want to single out any but suffice to say it has been very comfortable, especially since the weather hasn't been good at all for the last week (so much rain!). I would say that about 20%!o(MISSING)f the cafes listed in the Brierley guide are closed - a victim of the extended economic troubles in Portugal, so I would recommend that you get coffee when you see an open cafe and not wait for the next one. We were caught out more than once.<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">The Portuguese people - I say this without any reservation - the Portuguese are the nicest people in the Universe. It has been an umitigated pleasure to have been a guest in their country.



Specific Things (A Random List)
<ol style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 3em; padding: 0px; color:𢡦 font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.533332824707px; background-color: #fcfcff;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">The route into Alhandra on Day 1 has changed to take you through a wetlands along a boardwalk. It adds a bit of distance to the day. We walked 35kms to finish at Verdalha.<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">The climb into Santarem is tough at the end of the day. It should be reported as a crime against humanity...<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Santarem - Golega - this has been re-marked AGAIN with very 'offical' markings. This initally made me more comfortable as I was aware there had been some ambiguity about the marking (going around Pombalinho vs going through Azinhaga). Now the markings take you THROUGH Pombalinho (where we had lunch) AND through Azinhaga AS WELL. This means that we walked 37.8 Kms for the day! I would suggest that the Golega town authorities have set this up to maximise sales for both towns. When we had walked five Kms from Pombalinho only to arrive in Azinhaga, I said some VERY bad words...<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">The walk into Porto was not as bad as I had been led to believe. The good news is that once you hit the built up areas it's almost all gently downhill - even after 30Kms I was able to walk at 6 Kms per hour pace, which meant it disappeared pretty quickly



That's about it - two things left to say:
<ol style="margin: 1em 0px 1em 3em; padding: 0px; color:𢡦 font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14.6666669845581px; line-height: 20.533332824707px; background-color: #fcfcff;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">Please forgive the spelling in this post - the computer is using Portuguese as the default and so it sees everything as incorrect, so I can't really check things and...<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: decimal outside;">I can't wait to walk from Porto to Santiago from tomorrow



Cheers

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