Category: Camino

Senda Litoral Route – Caminho Português – September 2022 – Day 7

Day 7! Vigo to Ponte Sampaio!

Milestone day! This was the day we crossed the 100km mile marker. We began our day in Vigo at just over 100km from our goal of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela!

One of the very first mile markers of our day 7!
After walking through the city proper, we arrived at its outskirts where we were to begin an ascent…

When you take a photo to show the depth and steepness of a hill, it almost never turns out. Trust me on this, when we got out of the city it was quite a brutal uphill climb to a ridge above it.

A brutal climb, but well worth it once we were able to take in the views the ridge afforded us.

It was actually quite breathtaking…and once we were up there, it was relatively flat for a while.

We kept coming across new vistas that felt like the perfect place to take the day’s selfie…again and again…

There was no end to the beauty below us. A look to the left, throughout this entire Camino, was bound to offer beauty…

Soon after breaking the 100km mark, we were gently being eased back into nature…

The hills of Spain! They’re everywhere!
THIS is what the Camino is all about. Being at one with the nature around you.

Leave it to the Camino to have the most interesting and gorgeous artwork appear out of nowhere along the path. Some call this graffiti or vandalizing, but whatever. I love the art we find along the way. I always appreciate it! I don’t give a rat’s ass what the naysayers say.

Like a fish out of water…

Mid-day we had to climb DOWN into a town. At this point, my toes had had enough! It was one of the most painful descents of our entire Camino. I did find this interesting doll on the porch of one of the houses on our way down, though. Turns out it has its own Instagram and they change the clothes and theme periodically…

https://www.instagram.com/meryitsme_/

I always love the way some locals just get all in when it comes to the Camino. Whether it’s little things like the Meryitsme_ doll, or big elaborate yard decorations. Love!

Once we climbed down into the little town, we found a place to have lunch. The food on the Camino–always simple and fortifying–is ALWAYS just so GOOD! It probably has something to do with the level of exhaustion you’re feeling, with your absolute need to have calories! At any rate, even your run of the mill everyday sandwich tastes like manna from heaven! Especially when paired with a cold beer!

Simple but delectable!

After lunch, we left the little town and found ourselves back in nature. And back to yet another makeshift Camino altar…

Spontaneous ‘altars’ like this one pop up all along the Camino. Little places where pilgrims leave offerings to lost loved ones…

Just prior to reaching our day’s end goal of Ponte Sampaio, we reached a rather iconic Instagram famous landmark. The two shoes!

Follow the YELLOW shoe to Santiago de Compostela…

After crossing a short bridge (a bit of a theme on the Portugues Caminho, as we came to realize), we were in Ponte Sampaio…and just a few hundred feet from our albergue. A few almost impossible hundred feet. The last km is always the worst, I swear!

The short bridge leading us into Ponte Sampaio!

But we soon discovered we had scored again in the accommodation department. Our lodgings for the night were just shy of perfect! And complete with laundry facilities and a church outside our bathroom window!

The restuarant a couple of doors down was affiliated with the albergue and offered some great fare! We were just happy we wouldn’t have to walk too far to fuel up!

If you’re stopping in Ponte Sampaio, you won’t go wrong staying in El Hostel Albergue O MESÓN de Ponte Sampaio. The link is to their website, but we booked through Booking dot com.

That’s day seven over! 3 days to go…how fast the Caminos go! Day 8? Caldas de Reis or bust!

Click here to jump to DAY 8!

If you’ve found this series on our Camino Portuguese helpful and would like to support this page, you can do so by buying me a coffee! KevinCraig-BuyMeACoffee

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.

 

 

Senda Litoral Route – Caminho Português – September 2022 – Day 6

Day 6! Baiona to Vigo!

Day 6 began with passing a church. Surprise. There are more churches in Spain than people…

It was one of those Big Sky days, where the clouds and the sun were both endless, fighting each other for power. My favourite kind of day.

A Big Sky kind of day!
Some nice vistas as we walked out of Baiona! So pretty.
There was a bit of nature on today’s walk, but mostly it was city walking. This path was a gorgeous momentary respite…

 

Quite a few churches this day. We were definitely in Spain…

We were getting farther away from the shoreline, but it was still within our sights…for now.

So many different terrains this day. We even walked beneath a rather major highway…

This actually felt like the easiest day yet. We had found our stride, I think.

We arrived in Vigo in no time! It was a fairly big city in comparison to some of the others we had passed through. It was lovely walking through the streets of Vigo, big Europe energy! And the food was great, too!

The pedestrian street you see above is a great hub of activity and it’s only two minutes away from where we stayed at HOTEL VIGO PLAZA, which was right on the Camino route. The hotel was really nice. The front desk staff were extremely helpful and friendly. They recommended the restaurant below that we went to. And there’s a bar right in the hotel lobby. The desk staff moved across the lobby to the bar and got us some ice cold beer to enjoy while we gave ourselves a breather before heading to our rooms.

 

The restaurant was PEREGRINUS PULPERIA CHURRASQUERIA VIGO.

Vigo, where, aching feet aside, we may have finally found our groove!

Click here to jump to DAY 7!

If you’ve found this series on our Camino Portuguese helpful and would like to support this page, you can do so by buying me a coffee! KevinCraig-BuyMeACoffee

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.

 

 

Senda Litoral Route – Caminho Português – September 2022 – Day 4

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.

And just like that, back to the ocean…

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.

Once we hit Caminha, it was clear we were still firmly inside Portugal. The tell-tale signs that we were close to Spain melted away inside this town, that looked fully and completely like Portugal.
Our apartment in Caminha was gorgeous, and only a two minute walk to the boat launch the next morning. PURE PERFECTION!
After an amazing feast at a local restaurant, we were ready for a good night’s sleep.

I tried to link this amazing apartment that we found on BOOKING DOT COM, but unfortunately they took it off the market. It was by far my favourite place we stayed. Pure magic. I would live in that apartment!

ETA: I revisited this apartment online recently (2024) to see if anything changed and it IS available. Looks like they take it off and put in back on…maybe seasonal? Anyway, it’s called CASA DO CAIS DE CAMINHA and it’s exceptional! Click the link to see if it’s on the market when you’re planning. It’s right in town and it would be a great place for a break day…or even just to get your bearings in a private accommodation for a night.

It was time for bed. In the morning, we would make the two minute walk to the boat launch and set out on our first day in SPAIN!

Click here to jump to DAY 5!

If you’ve found this post helpful and would like to support this page, you can do so by buying me a coffee! KevinCraig-BuyMeACoffee

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.