It is high time, that I finally start writing up my notes from my adventure earlier this spring. It’s just that as soon as I got back, Life, which had been on pause, sprang back into action and demanded all my time and focus, so I barely even managed to think back to sunny days and beaches … It’s coming back to me now, and so it’s time.
A bit of background:
In 2019, while walking up to O Cebreiro – my all-time favourite uphill – I met Nanci, an American lady who was walking from Leon with a group of friends. We kept in touch through the US election and the pandemic, and then decided to walk from St Jean to Leon last spring, to complete her Camino Francés. Which reminds me, I haven’t written about that either … Then we decided to go walking again this spring, but wanted to pick a different route. Nanci loves beaches, I love the Atlantic, so for our next adventure we chose to walk the Portuguese Coastal and then carry on out to Finisterre. And we would take our time; the plan included no days off, but several short days of ~10 kms to make it a relatively leisurely stroll.
We thought about starting in Coimbra, as I have always wanted to go there, but instead decided to go there for two nights before we started. Like a gentle catch-up before we started walking.
And so it was that I arrived in Porto one late evening in May, checked into to my cheap and cheerful room right by the ever endless queue to enter the Lello bookstore and the gorgeous Carmo church with its fantastic blue tile decor, and went for some Epic Prawns and a beer.
The next day I met up with Colleen of Then We Walked, who I also walked with in 2019! She was meeting a group and guiding them through their slightly faster Camino, but had time to meet up for a coffee in the elegant Café Majestic in the centre of Porto. After checking in to her much nicer (and more expensive) room across the street, we went for a gentle stroll around the city, visiting the huge indoor food market and drooling over everything that was too heavy or too perishable to bring in our packs the next day.
It turned into a really hot day, but when I got the message that Nanci had arrived, we decided to go and sit outside somewhere in the shade – only problem was that everyone else had the same idea. Nanci had seen a poster with an offer on empanadas and a drink, so we tracked the place down and discovered they had the half-out/half-in seating off the street, perfect for a warm evening. We may have had a bottle of reunion albariño with our goodies …
Then after an eventful day, we went back to our cheap rooms with rooftop views to pack up and get ready for our trip to Coimbra the next day.
Somewhere Slowly 