Porto to Vila do Condo

I breakfasted on two espressos and a mini pastel de nada, not the most sensible but gosh it was good and served me well until lunchtime. I did also have a cheese roll and a glass of water.

I got the metro to Matosinhos and crossed the Río Leça via the busy Ponte Móvel with a few other pilgrims and after a couple of kilometres we hit the beach and it was pretty much a boardwalk for 22 km to Vila do Conde where I’m staying the night in a very acceptable hotel close to the cathedral. As is usual on the Camino coming into the city centre was a bit problematic involving a walk through an active building site, there was probably an alternative route but none of us discovered it, the digger drivers waved cheerily.

The coastal walking is superb some of the best I’ve ever done. A lot of it is a nature reserve hence the boardwalks to preserve the sand dunes. Flocks of stonechats, serins – a distant relative of the canary, and I think a crested lark. My Merlin app works brilliantly here. I kept looking out for the green tree frogs which I would love to have seen.

I stopped with a young American pilgrim for lunch just over half way at Lavra where I feasted on 4 sardines, a large, allegedly small, salad and some rather nice boiled potatoes with olive oil and garlic that I hadn’t asked for but arrived anyway.

This evening I had no difficulty in getting a pilgrim meal quite early, Vila do Condo is a stopping point for pilgrims on the coastal Camino and the Camino Central and well set up to serve both routes.

I had more difficulty in deciding which photos to use. The main one is the Piscina das Marés, a tidal public swimming pool near Matosihos designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira in the 1960s to which I intend to return when I’m back Porto in a couple of weeks. Extras include flowering prickly pears and a salt water lagoon with Vila do Condo in the distance.