We start in the oven

October 7 2023. Day 1 Camino Portugués Porto to Praia Chã

I convinced Alice to start today early instead of clearing up a questionably functioning SIM card, and I’m glad I did as the heat really drained us. We arose at 7 from our hotel in the Tridade neighborhood, stopped for a light breakast at Pão fofo ( literally cute bread). Then down the hills to the Cathedral, then some stone staircases and down to the river Douro.

We only walked a kilometer when we came upon Kristen, a Scottish girl who is taking a gap year after high school. As we chatted we came to the unbelieveable conclusion — her dearest walking companion from Lisbon northward was our friend Jessica from Berlin who we met last year on the Camino del Norte! We exclaimed how could this be possible! It made us all feel like family immediately.

We continued aloung the Duoro River, turining north as we arrived at the Atlantic Ocean. At Matosinhos, Alice and I turned into town and said good-bye to Kristin, as we wanted to visit a cellular service store. The town was fun to walk through, but the service store had no functioning SIM cards to sell us, so we walked to a neighborhood cafe for a second breakfast with coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Walking out of Matosinhos we came to a large drawbridge, that got us over the Leça River.

We continued on into what was an extremely busy beach resort region, with legions of runners, walkers and cyclists. The sun began to beat down with increasng intensity and less and less shade. Swimmers also frolicked in the summer-like temperatures.

We renewed our plan for taking breaks and getting through difficult stretches. We would take a break every 4 km and get to lunch by 20 km. We had a beautiful place scoped out and got there by 11:30. The problem was that it’s a ritzy restaurant and every single table was reserved. We had to walk back another km to a tiny and basic beach shack for very simple sandwiches, juice and beer. The beer was a mistake as it sapped us of our heat resistance. We learned.

Back on the beachside boardwalks heading north we came upon many pilgrims walking north. Chatting with them helped to take away our own discomfort as the miles piled on and the head and dehydration sapped us. We found that the little washing stations designed for swimmers to rince off became cooling stations for us. We could slip under them quickly and get a little wet. Like runinig through a sprinkler in Michigan.

As we walked we ran into interesting historical markers which taught us about remains of ancient Roman settlements, and even some Norse markings from the Vikings.

At 29.5 km we arrive in Chã and found our guesthouse run by Sandy from Venezuela. She graciously showed us our spacious room ( 45 Euro) and asked what time we’d like to eat dinner. Later we came down for a breaded fish and chips and dinner. Simple, but everything tastes good after 30 km.