Caminha – KEVIN CRAIG

Day 5! Caminha to Baiona!

Day five would begin in Portugal, but we wouldn’t be there for long! With a two minute walk to the boat-launch, we were so close to Spain, we could practically swim there! But we had help. We were able to secure our passage from Portugal to Spain with XACOBEO TRANSFER. A quick two minutes on their website the night before, and I was able to get our 3 tickets without issue. All we had to do was show up at the boat launch the next morning.

Prebook your passage with ease with Xacobeo Transfer…

We were able to take the first boat of the day! Didn’t even need to show our tickets, as the driver had a manifest of passengers printed out…

A quick boat-ride of maybe five minutes and we were there!

When we stepped off the boat, less than five minutes later, we were in a different country. AND a different timezone. Spain is one hour ahead of Portugal. Suddenly the five minute boat ride ate up an hour and five minutes of our time. But we were in Spain!

And the walking, at least for a little while, was easy. We walked alongside a highway, with a nice footpath that was gentle on our blistered feet.

And the coast was still just a hair’s breath away…always there.

We were closing in on the halfway point of our journey.

Although the skies grew threatening at times, it was a great day with no rain. And many different terrains to walk.

It was easier to appreciate the proximity of the shoreline, knowing full well it would soon be gone for good. Some gorgeous vistas on this day!

Breathtaking views of the ocean gave us a sort of regret, knowing we would soon be leaving it behind…

At this point, what we didn’t realize is that we would soon be climbing a bit of a mountain. Just like that, we were stepping back into some treacherous and exhausting terrain.

TFW you climb forever and suddenly find yourself directly opposite (and at the same height as) the mountain you were afraid you would have to climb.

Of course we had to climb a mountain before the end of our first day in Spain. And of course we had to climb back down it! One thing I remember from the Camino Frances is the amount of times we had to walk down into our final resting place town. The end of the day always seemed to end with steep downhill walks. This first day in Spain was no different.

Our apartment for the night was really nice, though…made it worth the struggle at the end of our day. We were in Baiona! And our lucky streak with Booking dot com was continuing!

What’s a first day in Spain without the delectable Padrón pepper!

The Padrón pepper is a must eat dish on the Camino de Santiago. One of my favourite Camino treats!

This was yet another super long day. We definitely had too many of them. Again, I suggest you spread this walk out over more than our 10 days. You’ll thank me…

Day 6 would have us walking into VIGO, SPAIN. Barely started, and we were already aware of the closeness of the finish line! These 10 days were going by super fast!

Click here to jump to DAY 6!

I’m also an author. One of my novels, a young adult story, is set on the Camino Frances route of the Camino de Santiago. THE CAMINO CLUB. It follows six teens on their journey from Ponferrada to Santiago de Compostela. The teens walk with court appointed counselors in a juvenile delinquent program that will see them free of their records once they make the journey to Santiago…a clean slate. Think of a more diverse The Breakfast Club, but on the Camino de Santiago over two weeks instead of in a school library on a Saturday. Give it a look! It’s available wherever books are sold. Here’s the Amazon USA link.

Day 4! Viana do Castelo to Caminha!

Our last day in Portugal. After this day’s walk, we were going to be just a short boat ride away from Spain.

As soon as we began our walk in Viana do Castelo the next morning, I was struck by the beauty of the architecture.

There seemed to be churches around every corner. We even met a Facebook Camino group friend inside one of them. It’s quite a shock when someone comes up to you in a foreign country and calls you by your name. Believe it or not, it happened twice on this Camino. It happened inside the church pictured above, and once again in Santiago de Compostela while we were walking down the street and a Twitter mutual called out a hello. It’s a small world now that social media connects us all.

It was gonna be one of those days. Building after building, it was all so gorgeous.

Soon, we made our way out of the town and back to the solitude of the Camino. In an interesting turn of events, things were beginning to look a little familiar. Even though we had never been in this part of Portugal before.

What we began to notice was that, though we were still in Portugal, the Camino was taking on the look we remembered of the Camino Frances. Small towns, abandoned buildings, narrow alleyways. It felt like Spain…

We even saw our first hórreo (a Galician granary), something we didn’t think we would see until we crossed the border into Spain.

Oddly, artwork like this even reminded me of something I would see not on the Portuguese Way, but on the Frances.

This was so typically the Camino Frances, that we appeared to be in Spain before crossing into Spain. Portugal light, perhaps.

I knew if we looked hard enough, we would find cobble like surfaces! UGH.

Decorated yards like this one were very typical of the Camino Frances. Instagram stops.

So close to Galicia. It was in the air, that mossy always almost wet feeling. The bright greenness of it all. The closer we got to Caminha, Portugal, the nearer we were to leaving the country and slipping seamlessly into Spain.

Every footstep brought us closer. It didn’t matter that we were still a day away from crossing the river into a new country…the vibes were already bringing us there.

We found an absolutely gorgeous place to stop for a cupcake and a break.

Forest walks were not something we did a lot of in the days leading up to this one. We were now away from the beach and into the woods…

The trick about the Senda Litoral route, though, is that even when you think you’re far away from the shore, you eventually come back to it with a few simple turns.

We were close to the end of our day. Caminha was just around the corner. And so was an amazing apartment we booked through Booking dot com. We had no idea just how nice the place was.