Today is not quite day 1. It was 8 miles of trail walked, and about 200′ of climbing.
We officially start tomorrow. Today’s goal was to: 1) Recover (more, later), 2) Drop off a bag for DHL to ship to our finish line, and 3) see some sights around Porto, Portugal 🇵🇹!
(The Porto Train Station)1) Recover: We had an efficient flight into Lisbon from SFO, arriving Tuesday, mid-day. We had hoped to directly catch the Lisbon to Porto train, but it was sold out, leaving us to wait for the next train (3 hours later).
While jet-lag is always an issue when flying distances, we were both recovering from a nasty cold that cut our energy levels way down. Those extra, non-sleeping hours were rough.
(The view of Pont Luis from our place in Porto)
We finally got to our place, enjoyed the view, and slept!
The next day, we formally checked into our place as we had arrived too late the night before, then did tourist things. (Item 3, on our list)
At the Cathedral which serves as the start of this Camino, there were a number of college students sporting the local Porto university uniform.
If it looks familiar to you, it’s because that uniform served as the example for the Hogwarts (Harry Potter school) uniform, as Porto was where JK Rawlings wrote the book(s).
2) Drop off the bag: We have, on several of these trips, taken an extra non-backpack bag that we ship ahead to where we will finish the hike. This bag is much like Christmas … new (clean) clothes and other treats for our non-hiking tourist days!
We had arranged with DHL to drop off the bag at a local store where they receive such items. No problem!
Well, we had several hours of time and no particular need, so we decided to walk a bit of the formal hike, but without the backpack. 3 hours later and 8 miles up the coast, we were in Matosinhos, about half way to our tomorrow’s stage finish!
A ride on the local bus brought us back to our place in Porto. Tomorrow, we’ll get back on that bus (with our backpacks, this time), and start from where we left off today. Diane calculates it to be another 8 or so miles.
All for now. Thanks for rejoining us!
I hope you’re feeling better today. A real bummer to start out not feeling well! On one of my Facebook groups, a gal said she walked Porto to Santiago in eight days. I think she said she was doing about 30 km a day. Insane! Love you both and chat with you soon.
Just cause you can do something, doesn’t mean you should … Eight days? Can’t say that that would leave much time to talk, way local foods, dip your feet in the water, or even take an afternoon siesta! Uncivilized!