Travel – Page 7 – KEVIN CRAIG

Caminho Português Senda Litoral Route – Shoulds and Shouldn’ts PART ONE

There’s a lot of things to consider when planning your Senda Litoral Route walk of the Caminho Português. There really are no Shoulds or Shouldn’ts. I debated calling this Dos and Don’ts. In the end, this is just some advice you can either take or not take. Always remember… Your Camino, Your way!

But there are things to consider…

One of the very first is: Should I walk out of Porto on foot or should I take the street car?

I can only offer my own personal take on this, as I only walked once and we chose to walk the entire way out of the city… from the famous Dom Luís I bridge all the way to the lighthouses at the mouth of the River Douro where it meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Myself, Michael, and his sister Jenifer…with the Dom Luís I Bridge in the background. Where we began our Caminho…

There is nothing wrong with taking the streetcar along this portion of the route. Many, many pilgrims do it for various reasons. The streetcar travels alongside the river and takes you to the mouth. It will save you a few kms on your first day and it’s YOUR Camino/YOUR choice.

We walked and really enjoyed the views.

Arrábida Bridge, the last bridge on the River Douro prior to its convergence with the Atlantic Ocean. This bridge actually has a Bridge Climb. You can walk on the braces under the top spans. Check Viator or other tourist sites for info. **CLICK HERE.**

Once you pass under the Arrábida Bridge, the River Douro opens up and you’re well on your way to the lighthouses and the Atlantic Ocean.

There’s a lot to look at along the way. The walk up to the lighthouses, though, is the crown of the journey. It’s spectacular to see the waves crashing against the catwalks…and you can walk out on those catwalks and get some great shots, too!

This shot was taken from the catwalk of the bigger lighthouse, looking back at the smaller lighthouse.

So, to answer the first question… my answer would be YES. Take the walk out of the city. It’s spectacular. Again, though, it’s your walk. If you know this first day is going to be super long and you need to somehow shorten it, taking the streetcar out of town is how pilgrims have been doing so. YOUR Camino.

Should I stay in HI Vila do Conde – Pousada de Juventude in Vila do Conde?

Obviously, I cannot recommend albergues we haven’t stayed at. But I can suggest ones we stayed at that were amazing. And, depending on how you organize your daily walks you may not even find yourself staying in the same towns that we stayed in. With our crazy 10-day schedule, your trip may not align with ours at all.

I can highly recommend the first albergue we stayed in during our September 2022 Camino. Our day one brought us to Vila do Conde. Pousada de Juventude translates from Portuguese to YOUTH HOSTEL. On the surface, this gave me cause for pause. But trust me, it’s gorgeous. And they offer a great breakfast too. If you come to Vila do Conde–on your first or second or third day–you couldn’t go wrong staying at HI Vila do Conde – Pousada de Juventude. My suggestion is YES. Do it. Click this link.

Excuse the backpack explosion in this shot. This is what the rooms look like in this youth hostel. They’re clean and super cute. They have singles and, for our purposes, 3-bed rooms. Worked out perfectly. Nice first day ending.

The breakfast seating area.

Breakfast Buffet.

Sitting room off the breakfast room.

Should I stop at the Caminho Beach Bar?

This is NOT a bad idea. We thought there would be more options on the route. We ended up leaving the route for a few hundred feet when we spotted a place later and worried there was nothing else coming. So, when you see this sign…

…take it as a sign. Unless you’re okay with leaving the boardwalk and walking a few hundred feet into a small town further along. We had a great pit stop, don’t get me wrong. But if you don’t want to leave the path, this bar is the place for you. If you keep walking, keep an eye out for the place in the next photo. It’s a little town a little ways away from the Caminho Beach Bar…on your right-hand side. Looks like a parking lot that opens to a small town. There is also a very tiny grocers, should you need supplies.

Should I enter this ocean-side haunted house prior to Esposende?

Probably not!

Should I stay at the Esposende Guesthouse?

This may have been one of my favourite albergues on the Caminho Português. The level of trusted hospitality here reminded me of the Camino Frances. A woman greeted us for check-in and gave us the lay of the land. Once all were checked in, she left for the night and the pilgrims were on our own.

The gorgeous and fun Esposende Guesthouse

I don’t know why I fell hard for this one, but I did. It was cute. Click here.

There was a cash jar on the kitchen counter, beer in the fridge, wine on the counter. It was all honor system and prices were marked.

There was a kitchen, if you wanted to save a bit on costs and make your own meal. Everything you need is there. The town filled with restaurants is just outside your door, too, should you decide to taste the local fare.

The rooms were clean and cute, and the bathroom was a dream. Towels on the beds. It was an amazing place to end the day!

There were communal crash places aplenty, either indoor or out!

Should I stop to look out across the ocean and snap a selfie after the rain?

An emphatic YES. Stop and smell the roses. You are walking alongside an immeasurable vastness. Take it in. Immerse yourself in it!

Should I stay in HI Viana do Castelo – Pousada de Juventude in Viana do Castelo?

There are options in this bigger town. We chose the first ‘albergue’ once you cross the bridge into town. Should you stay there? That’s entirely up to you. This one lives up to the name of YOUTH HOSTEL. Click Here. The rooms were clean. It had breakfast on offer. It had a large communal room where you could eat an evening meal, should you bring one in. We got a pizza from a local pizzeria…using UberEats to get it delivered.

It was one of those ‘what-you-need’ places, whereas the Esposende Guesthouse was a ‘what-you-want’ place. This place had everything we needed and it was cheap and just inside town. Should you stay here? Entirely up to you and your expectations. WiFi was great, no issues. I believe their pilgrim offer was 14,00€. Link above.

I really wish I could recommend our next stay! It was in Caminha and it was an apartment and it was BEAUTIFUL! Sadly, I noticed that it is no longer on offer. It was a definite SHOULD. Very close to the town circle where the restaurants were and only two minutes from the boat launch in the morning. I would live there if I could.

Should I use Xacobeo Transfer to get from Caminha, Portugal to A Guarda, Spain?

Yes. Absolutely. It was a breeze to book the evening before. The boat met us and the driver had a manifest of passengers and consulted the manifest for our names. We didn’t even have to show a ticket on our phones or anything. Just get on the boat and get off at the other side. It was a quick 5-8 minute ride.

Here’s the link to their website: Xacobeo Transfer.

Tip to remember if your phone doesn’t automatically change, or if you don’t use a phone: A Guarda is ONE HOUR AHEAD of Caminha. So, though the ride takes a few minutes, you lose an hour. A Guarda is the beginning of Spain and they are an hour ahead of Portugal.

This ends Part One. Click here to JUMP TO PART TWO.

If you want to see our 10 day journey in full, here is the link to DAY ONE. At the end of every day, you will find a link to the next day. After those, you will also find a couple of posts on what to do in Porto before and after the Caminho.

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.

There is Never Any End to Paris

Hemingway knew about Paris and how it infiltrates you, once you’ve been there. He understood the ever-present need one has to return there, like a salmon running upstream and fighting against the current to return, to return, to return…for Paris gets into you, and calls you back. For Paris is a moveable feast hard to ignore, hard to stay away from. Hard, even, to turn away from.

My treasured copy of ***Shakespeare and Company: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart*** purchased at Shakespeare & Company in October, 2021. My favourite book!

We are returning to the magical city! Our passage is booked. We will spend a little of our September (2023) walking the streets of Paris once again. Two weeks this time. We will see the places we’ve already seen and some we missed. We will venture daily from our hotel on the outskirts of Le Marais this time. Nothing against the 9th Arrondissement (where we stayed in 2021) or Île Saint-Louis in the 4th (where I stayed in 2014)! We loved staying so close to the Moulin Rouge and Boulevard de Clichy! And I really enjoyed staying down the street from Notre-Dame! But it will be nice to stay in a different neighbourhood…experience a different vibe yet again. Besides, the Saint-Louis is only a stone’s throw from the Marais!

But this is still months away. 225 days, to be exact. Not that I’m counting. But let’s just be honest…I’m counting.

Having just disembarked from Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas not quite two weeks ago, I am already counting down to our next adventure with a degree of desperation.

Many of our mornings and nights in October of 2021 were spent walking into and out of our neighbourhood…which meant crossing the Champs-Élysées repeatedly. Look! There’s the Arc!

As we map out our stay in Paris, I already worry about our itinerary. Will we see everything we want to see? Will we forget something only to remember it when we’re on the plane on the way home? Will we have enough time? I’m already experiencing FOMO!

On our last night in Paris in October, 2021, we ran up the street from our hotel for one last view of the Moulin Rouge. Our last selfie in Paris that year. (PS: The bus did *not* hit us!)

This trip’s itinerary will have a mix of overlapping items with the last trip, as well as a lot of new items. There are some things I want to see during every Paris trip. Some of the new ones will be Paris Disney and Mont-Saint-Michel. As well as a few other sights we missed. I’m dying to visit Montparnasse!

We have 2 walking tours booked with Emmanuel’s Hidden Gems (Link is for his Instagram…he can also be found on Facebook). We’ve heard so many good things about Emmanuel’s tours in the Paris Facebook groups we’re in. We have to try him! We booked Montmartre and Le Marais, two places I adore.

Also, though a picnic was on our itinerary for 2021, we didn’t quite make it. It is my goal to do it this time around. It was great fun with the Left Bank Writers Retreat in 2014! Maybe somewhere in or near Square du Vert-Galant! That is the goal, anyway! We’ll get a baguette, some cheese, a little wine…it’ll be magic!

There are so many museums in Paris, that we only saw a fraction of them during our last visit. We’ll hit a few that we missed and probably do one or two that we have already visited. It would take a month to see all of the Louvre. It is impossible to see it all in one visit. Also, what’s a trip to Paris without going to Shakespeare & Company?! I couldn’t imagine it! I also want to go to their new(ish) coffee shop next door. I don’t know why we didn’t think to go there on our last visit.

One of my favourite days in Paris in 2021 was our DAY OF THE DEAD! This turned out to be a thematic day filled with all things dead, from the Catacombes, to Père Lachaise Cemetery to the Panthéon. It would have been the perfect Paris day, had the booked tour through Père Lachaise been unceremoniously and without warning cancelled. We had to wander through that city of a cemetery on our own. We still managed to find a lot of the graves we wanted to visit, but without the tour we felt we did not do it justice. Hopefully, now that we’re further along in this forever-pandemic, the tour we book this time won’t be cancelled at the last minute. I want context with my stroll through the cemetery.

La Closerie des Lilas, a must when in Paris for me!

The list of restaurants is growing so quickly, I’m afraid we won’t have enough days to visit all the ones we wish to see. We will be narrowing it down in the coming weeks. One I like to return to is La Closerie des Lilas. It’s not incredible, but it has an incredible literary history. It draws me to it. Maybe just a cocktail next time? Maybe with an appetizer?

From my June 2014 trip with Left Bank Writers Retreat…new writer friend, Nina! Atop the Arc.

If we miss anything, I suppose we can always do it on our NEXT trip after this one. There will always be a next trip, right?! There is never any end to Paris!

Only 225 days to go. That seems like a lifetime when there are several inches of snow on the ground and a cold-snap is threatening to overwhelm us. The countdown is on…

Paris or bust!

I’m also an author. Pick up my short book 7 – Paris at Sunset and Into the Night, and Other Stories at Amazon. 7 short stories, some of which are set in Paris, for less than $1!

Porto – Before and After the Camino! Part 2: After

We thought we would be returning from the Camino bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We were wrong. All three of us had foot issues. There wasn’t a non-limper among us. But we were still up for continuing our adventures in Porto. Maybe just a little more slowly…

The Half Rabbit! Little ole’ me at the Half Rabbit, R. de Santa M.nha 5-39, 4400-290 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.

Checklist:

Vila Nova de Gaia
Half Rabbit
Port Wine Tasting
Eat With
Livraria Lello
Burmester
6-Bridge Douro River Boat Tour
Douro Valley Wine Tour

One of the first things on this nerd’s list was the HALF RABBIT! I just had to see it! In person!

We walked across the bridge and entered the world of Gaia. The Douro separates the city of Porto from the city of Gaia. And we quickly found out that Gaia was just as happening a place as Porto! It was in Gaia that I needed to find my half rabbit.

If you look at the pic above, you’ll see just how huge this sculpture truly is. I can hardly see myself in the photo. I wanted it for perspective. This rabbit is HUGE. Ever since I first discovered the Half Rabbit, it has fascinated me. It’s made from trash and recycled goods collected by the city of Gaia. Created by Portuguese artist Bordallo II (animal art out of repurposed materials is their thing), the Half Rabbit serves as a critique of society’s wasteful ways. I think it’s fair to say it’s also a call to sustainability.

Makes you think. It’s beautiful, but it really makes one think about the amount of trash we accumulate, the landfills filling up all over the world.

The Half Rabbit is in the same neighbourhood as all the Port wine companies that dot the riverside on the Gaia side of the Douro. Our next stop, of course, was a quick tasting…

You can get tastings at various different restaurant patios in Gaia. This one we had was 5 for 5 Euros deal, which, come on…is exceptional value. You really can’t beat that. And the Port was fantastic.

On to the next thing! Wherever you go in the world, do yourself a favour and check out what’s happening there on EATWITH. Eatwith have everyday people in the cities you visit offering to host you at their house for a meal. It’s also a great place to check out other eating related events in the area you’re staying, like food tours and special offers, etc. I’ve been excited to try them for a while now. I was not disappointed! We booked an evening called THE PORTO STORIES: ON CITY, COD AND PORT with hosts Manuel and Jelena. Our hosts were entertaining and gracious. They made a fabulous meal and told wonderful stories about their city, cod, and much more. It was a thoroughly entertaining evening, accompanied by wonderful food and drink. So glad we booked it! Wherever you go, if EATWITH is available in the area, you will find so many interesting things to do. Check it out!

My only wish is that we had given ourselves another day to recuperate from our recent travels prior to booking this evening. We were all walking zombies by the time we arrived at Manuel and Jelena’s house. We thoroughly enjoyed it, but the exhaustion had us dragging a bit at the end of the evening.

The next day…drumroll please! The moment I’d been waiting for! Livraria Lello! Such a beautiful interior in this historic bookstore. And I had only been able to see it on Instagram and YouTube. I’m a huge fan of bookstores in general, and if you’ve read any of this blog you will know I have a favourite and that it’s in Paris and a stone’s throw away from Notre Dame. But this one? I’ve been dying to get inside.

Even if you book a time online prior to your arrival, you’re going to have to wait in a line. The frenzy to get into this one is even more grand scale than it is at Shakespeare & Company.

An historic plaque outside the bookstore.

The stained glass ceiling. “Decus in Labore”, which means “Dignity in Work”

The store, as seen from above at the top of the staircase.

It was almost impossible to get a shot that wasn’t a little bit blurred. It was constant motion in that store. Such a different vibe than Shakespeare & Company. People are here to SEE the store. People are at Shakespeare to FEEL the store.

It was a wonderful store and I grabbed a couple of books. One for myself as a souvenir and one for the grandboys because that’s what I do…I buy them books.

I got myself a special Livraria Lello edition of one of my favourite books, Gatsby.

After the bookstore, we decided we were not yet finished with Gaia. We had a Port wine tour booked and we needed some lunch. The riverside on the Porto side is filled with restaurant patios. But it’s good to remember that so is the riverside on the Gaia side. We had seen some nice restaurants over there and wanted to give them a go!

First! It was time to once again attempt to save the world. I did this in Lisbon in 2019 and nothing seemed to happen. Thought I’d try again…

Off to Gaia!

A quick stop at the FANTASTIC WORLD OF PORTUGUESE CAN made me realize maybe us Canadians don’t put enough stock into our canned goods?

Oh, and did I mention the Casa Portuguesa Pastel Bacalhau? Once you’ve had one of these lovelies, you will understand the need to have a huge emporium erected just to showcase their yummy goodness. Step inside and have a bite! There’s a LOT to see in Gaia!

For lunch, I highly recommend Faberninha do Manel.

I’m not going to suggest which of the plethora of Port cellars in Gaia you should visit. Do the research and decide which one you should go to. Or go to two or three or many. It’s up to you. We chose Burmester, which is the first one you come to after you cross the bridge from Porto (it’s right at the foot of the bridge if you cross over on the bottom span). The tour guide was lovely and we had a great time.

We arranged our Burmester tour with the 6-bridge Douro River boat tour. Get both together in a package with a discount.

The 6-bridge tour was next and we had to return to the Porto side for that. It was nice…I’m glad we did it. It wasn’t the Seine, but it was well worth it for the experience.

The last planned event on our itinerary was an all-day affair. We booked a tour of the Douro Valley that included lunch, a vineyard tour and tasting, and a boat-ride. Before we even set out, I have to say I was feeling a bit over-vacationed. I think we were all feeling a little exhausted and warn out, but we kept on trucking. This was to be a highlight of our trip.

Only, it wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, it was great. We just didn’t anticipate how mind-numbingly over it we were when it came to travelling. By travelling, I mean…we spent a lot of our day in a bus. Do the tour. It’s great, really. But be prepared for bus time.

The Douro Valley is beautiful, and worth seeing. Maybe do it at the beginning of your trip when you’re still fresh.

Photos from our day in the Douro Valley:

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For all intents and purposes, that was the end of our Porto (and beyond) adventures. We had the next morning, but then we were off. It was time to return home to Canada.

These were just a few of the things you can do while in Porto. It’s an amazing city and it shouldn’t be overlooked when planning your European vacation.

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