Notes from our late September Portuguese Camino

We did our Portuguese Camino from Porto in late September. We did it a little more platinum than most, I think. No regrets. Here are some of our notes from the walk in case they might be helpful to someone else.

-  We flew into Porto. The metro from Porto airport is easy to take into town. The stop on the airport line closest to the cathedral is Trindade. Make sure you touch the metro card to the post (not sure what it is called) near the entrance before boarding. When buying the ticket for more than one person, make it two transactions or it will put the 2^(nd) ticket on the same card. You may be able to touch the card to the pole twice if you do make that mistake.

- Lots of good vegan restaurants in Porto: da Terra (nicer place), Verde Hut (buffet – mostly Indian). Also, there are several small groceries where you can get peanut butter, bread, fruit and vegetables (MyAuchan, Spar, Friose). There are many good vegan restaurants along the trail. We used Happy Cow and Google Maps to find them. As a last resort, we would go to Burger King and have the vegetarian sandwich. We think it is vegan unless you object to it being cooked on the same grill as the meat sandwiches.

- For lunch along the trail, we had a few “pilgrim set meals,” which were fine, but if the weather is nice, it’s cheaper and enjoyable to stop into a village grocery store and get bread, fruit, etc. and have a picnic. Often the small villages only have 1-2 cafes, which can be overwhelmed with pilgrims.

- Albuergues – I didn’t enjoy it. Very nice host and pilgrims. But, getting sleep was difficult in main rooms. Also, always worried about bed bugs (never saw any). So, after staying in a better rated one we didn’t enjoy, we decided the price difference for private rooms off booking.com and Airbnb was small enough just to do that. If you don’t plan to stay in albergues, pack weight can be very low, as you really only need a couple of outfits, layers, rain gear, toiletries, water, and snacks. No need to bring a water filter, sleeping bag, towel, shampoo, etc. As a consequence, arranging for pack transfer is an unnecessary logistical task. It would be easy to get pack weight to 10 pounds or less.

- Clothes washing – A couple of our stays had a washer and dryer but normally we just found a laundromat (lavanderia) and took the hour to wash them there. Keep in mind, laundromat washing machines add detergent automatically in Europe, so no need to buy or bring your own. The machines cost 4-6 euro for the wash and 1-3 euro for the dryer.

- We decided not to participate in the clam shell, passport stamping, and credential acquisition at the end. The clam shell and credential mostly because it would just be one more thing for the kids to get rid of when we die. The passport stamps become a distraction to the hike. You start to do things/go places just to get a stamp, seemed to take away from it all.

- Conditioning – We had taken several long walks in the week or two leading up to the Camino including some more than 20 miles. I think that helped a lot. Nevertheless, we found that our feet got sore in ways we had not experienced before. We treated a couple of minor blisters with tape and toe socks and they went away without issue. I think I would spend more time strengthening my feet including improving balance before going next time. Many other pilgrims seemed to have foot problems/blisters and knee problems. I was also surprised at how much the cobblestones affected my feet. The constant changing of angles that you are stepping on really does a number on your feet.

- We took the Litoral route out of Porto and found it was a great walk along the river and coast. We walked to Vila de Conde on the first day, then crossed back over to the Central route using the river route from Vila de Conde to Barcelinhos/Barcelos via Rates. That route was a lot of road walks, some very tight to traffic, but it worked.

- Since we had made good time and had extra days, we took the Spiritual Variant. I recommend this route. The first day has a good climb. The payoff is the second day going down from the peak to the city where you get the boat ride to Padron. It runs along a really magical creek in a green tunnel of trees, something straight out of Lord of the Rings movie. Boat on spiritual variant: there are 2 big boats per day; book ahead if you want the later boat; get there early, as seating is first-come, first-serve; boat can be cold, so have layers handy. The boat ride was cramped and loud/lively. I didn’t enjoy it, but it was worth it to enjoy the beauty of the Spiritual Variant walk. They have coffee and little cake slices, but it’s not great. You have to store your packs in the hold, so at the end there is a queue to get your pack to get off the boat.

- Once you cross into Spain, it is harder to find restaurants open between 4pm-8pm (which is when we usually arrived hungry). So it takes a little more planning. In addition, as the Coastal and Central routes come together in Tui and new pilgrims start their camino, the route gets more crowded and rooms are harder to find in and after Tui. We could reserve a room at lunch time before Tui. After it, we had to arrange the room the day before.

-  We checked one of our packs on the flights to/from and used a $5 Ikea zippered bag to protect it during the flights, both directions. Held up well. 

All together it took us 10.5 days and 175 miles of hiking. Great walk, I highly recommend it. Enjoy.