Day 20 - To Fão

The three, younger, people that were staying in our room last night came in at about 12:30, very quietly. They were all still asleep when we packed and left this morning. The breakfast that was provided by the hostel was OK but somewhat light on choice.  As we left, heading towards the seaward side of town we saw the German party setting off towards the river side. That direction would take them across country towards the more central route of the Camino. There are, as I think I have mentioned before, several Camino routes from south to north in Portugal. We have walked on the most westerly one, along the edge of the ocean, "The Camino Litoral", so far.

It took us a while, walking through the town, to reach the coast again, we had to come inland a lot yesterday to cross the river at the first bridge. Today is 25th April, the day that, 42 years ago, Portugal had its "Carnation Revolution ", when it's last dictator was removed. So it is a national holiday. The streets through the town were very quiet, all the offices etc were closed as were many shops. When we arrived at the promenade though things changed. The whole length of the very interesting sea front for several kilometres was thronged with people out strolling, walking jogging, running and cycling. The whole length was nicely developed with lots of interesting buildings, sculpture and other public art of all kind

Eventually the numbers declined as we left the built-up areas and got into the countryside again.

The boardwalks across the sand dunes were again much in evidence. These provide a very pleasant walking environment.

Eventually, however, we had to head away from the actual coast and the route moved inland for a distance. This part of the route was a total change from the earlier one. The area we were now walking through seems to be one gigantic market garden. It consisted mainly of hundreds of plastic growing tunnels interspersed with small plots of land, all intensively cultivated.

The main crop were onions, we could see, and smell, the plants all over the area. The environment was not very pleasant to view and certainly not to walk on as we were now walking entirely on very rough cobbled roads that seemed endless. The map showed that there were no villages, etc, anywhere in any direction for several kilometres, so we had no chance of a break for lunch. We did come across a campsite at one point. The entrance looked to be quite a distance off our route and there were no indications that there were any eating facilities there, so we decided to continue. 

After several more kilometres we reached the town/village of Apulia, again no cafes, bars or other eateries. Eventually we reached Fão  and our destination for today, the local youth hostel.  We were soon allocated a room with four bunks, and settled in. Strangely we would have to wait until after 6pm to register and pay for the room, a strange system as there is nobody there during the afternoon to do the paperwork. Weird!.

Later, while we were waiting to pay etc. we met a Belgian couple, about our age, who had intended doing a cruise along the Duoro river but this had been cancelled as the river levels were too high due to the heavy rains recently. Instead they were doing a driving tour around the area and happened to be staying in the youth hostel tonight. They were very interesting to talk to and were really interested in the whole Camino idea. 

By this time we were feeling very hungry, not really having had anything to eat since breakfast, so we went up into the town to try to find somewhere to eat. Fairly close by we found a bar/restaurant that looked OK, so we gave it a try. It turned out that the restaurant service didn't start until 7pm, about 20 minutes time. So, while we waited we had a drink and some olives and crisps as an appetiser.

At 7pm the barman told us that we should go upstairs to the restaurant proper. We hadn't realised that the bar and restaurant were separate and followed a waitress upstairs into a really nice area. Initially we were the only ones there but within 30 minutes there were about 12 people there, and by the time we left there must have been about 25. The menu was quite extensive with lots to choose from. The meal itself was delicious, and turned out to be very reasonably priced even including a very nice tasting bottle of local red wine.

Over the meal we discussed our future route. Today's route was initially good, but once we turned inland it deteriorated a great deal. The prospects for the next few days look similar. We're also back in the situation that the distances between places we can stay become rather more than we like to walk. So a rethink was necessary. The conclusion of this rethink is that tomorrow we will take the bus directly inland for about 25kms to the city of Barcelos,  which is on the "traditional" Camino route. Essentially we are not advancing any further towards Santiago but changing "tracks" onto a route with somewhat better accommodation prospects for the next few days. The two routes will join together, anyway, in about 4 to 5 days time.

After our meal we returned to the youth hostel to find that we still had the whole of our room to ourselves, no other pilgrims had been allocated to fill the spare bunks.