Day 18 - To Matosinhos

It's been a funny day, as they say. Yesterday, for all sorts of reasons was hard going. Our decision to stay at a good hotel at the end of our day's walking helped a lot. As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, the accommodation in the town was sparse and not given very good reviews. At the beginning of yesterday's walk we did consider going on to São João Da Madeira, which is a bigger town and had more , places to stop. However by the time we reached Oliveira de Azemèis frankly, we'd had enough, and the thought of another 9.5kms with even more hills, and built-up areas, didn't appeal.

So the hotel it was.

Today presented an even greater problem for us. The only possible stopping place between Oliveira and Porto was São João which was now too close for a valid day's walk. After São Joào it was 34kms to Porto, in itself too far in a day for us. Additionally all of the route between Oliveira and Porto is classed as built-up and very hilly. 

After considering all the options we decided to opt-out of that section all-together and travel in to Porto by bus, and then walk on from there. We found the bus times, had a lazy morning, with a very good breakfast in the hotel. A breakfast which I commenced by spilling a full glass of fruit juice all over the sparkling clean table cloth. We had to move to another table. Also, I didn't realise at the time, but I was sitting there wearing my shirt inside out. Not a great start to the day.

We finally got to the bus station about 11am and duly travelled into Porto by bus.  We didn't actually go all the way into Porto, but got off a few stops from the centre, an area we knew from our previous visits.

We walked over the high level "Eiffel" bridge, with its views of the city and into the cathedral area from there.

We needed to go to the cathedral for two reasons. Firstly it is the starting point for the Porto to Santiago Camino. Secondly we needed to purchase two more credentials as our current ones, from Lisbon, are getting full. They will definitely be full before Santiago and there is nowhere else to get additional copies, that we know of, between Porto and Santiago.

As we arrived at the cathedral we met Bernard, from Germany. He had arrived there somewhat earlier than us. He also managed to miss out the grind into Porto after being offered a car lift for about the last 20kms. Shortly afterwards we meet Joe, from Ireland, with his wife. She had flown in to meet him for the weekend before flying back to Ireland leaving Joe to continue his walk to Santiago. We are constantly amazed how often we re-meet people we think we'll never see again. 

We decided to lunch in Porto before starting out to walk along the riverside, out to the Atlantic ocean, and up the coast to Matosinhos, our stopping point for today. We couldn't decide what to have for lunch, that is until we spotted Subway. We decided to try it, and it was exactly the same as every other Subway we've ever been in. We were soon served, had lunch and set off out of town. 

The initial part of the route took us through a lot of the historical, and very touristy, parts of Porto, all of which were crammed with people.

We probably saw as many people this afternoon as we've seen since leaving Lisbon. As we walked along the riverside the crowds reduced slightly but there were lots of people all the way, about 14kms, to the centre of Matosinhos.

The weather was very good, sunny but not too hot and nice, flat, and interesting walking.

Close to Matosinhos, we noticed some bronze plaques set into the pavement on a stretch of the road near the sea, all were related to car racing.  

Some quick research this evening revealed that this road formed part of the "Curcuit de Boavista" a car racing circuit used mainly in the 1950/60s, but still used occasionally today. It was the track used for the Portuguese Formula-1 races on two occasions. Wikipedia has details here.

Just nearby is a beach area, close to the port, that was being used by several surfers. 

The only real problem we had was, as ever, right at the end of the walk. The hotel we're staying in, as pilgrims with a very good rate, is the Holiday Inn Express, which is located about a kilometre out of the town centre and beyond the port area.

It took a little finding. It is however a very nice place.

That's two nights in a row that we've lived in luxury, probably the last for some while, but we have also reached two significant points. The first if that we have reached, and passed, Porto and that we have now walked over 200 miles on this trip. Porto is significant in that many people who say they have walked the Camino Portuguese actually only start from Porto, so we should now start seeing many more pilgrims along the way.