Portugal El Camino - 2016

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Day 18 – September 10, 2016 - Sao Joao da Madeira, Portugal to Grijo, Portugal - 12.50 Miles

The morning is considerably warmer than yesterday - 61 degrees. We leave the hotel walking in the direction of the church. As we are walking we pass by a cute mural, a statue of a shoe repairman and one of men around a bowl with what appears to be hats in their hands and the Oliva factory (sewing machine).

Right before we reached the church we stopped at an intersection trying to decide which way the trail goes when we are approached by an elderly Portuguese man trying to tells us in Portuguese to continue straight ahead past the church. We thank him and proceed on to the beautiful church that has fine façades of blue and white tile Azulejo.

After passing the church we take a set of steps up into rua S Antonio where we again join the road and soon pass by a really neat Azulejo of a lady praying. Continuing on we begin to see more than one arrow at a time on cement poles, etc. so I say to Harlan “they really are being generous today by giving each of us an arrow to follow as they must want to be sure we don’t get lost”.

Further down the road we pass by a well-kept home with a cool circular tower in it. We then pass by a school where we are joined by another pilgrim, Kevin from Australia who walks with us for the rest of the day.

The trail continues through a residential area where we cross the bridge over the busy N-1 proceeding through Sanfins and eventually turning onto a Roman road that takes us into Malaposta. We now enter a well preserved stretch of the original Via XVI walking through residential/commercial area.

It’s not long before the trail leads us through a shaded woodland where we eventually come to a café that we stop at for some coffee. After coffee we get back on the trail which now is a cobblestone path that takes us past some blackberries that we just couldn’t pass up tasting.

Continuing on we pass through several urbanized neighborhoods before reaching Vergada. As we proceed steeply down we get our first views of Porto and the sea before coming to the stone walls of the Grijo monastery. We stop at the Massimus coffee shop and have a cold beer with Kevin while waiting for Sergio to pick us up and return us to our hotel in Sao Joao da Madeira.

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Comments

[Jean Pardee]

Those pictures!
Again, such a good eye for photo ops! Thanks, again, Jo!