Another big day on the Camino Português! After a big breakfast at the beautiful youth hostel in Vila Nova de Cerveira we followed the ecopista up the river until we felt we'd had enough of trees and water and bird life and needed some more concrete benefits, such as a mid-morning cup of coffee! We passed through an industrial zone and a number of sparsely inhabited villages and crossed a couple of medieval bridge in fruitless pursuit of caffeine before finally locating a coffee bar that was actually open for business.
After satisfying this primary need we put a few more kilometres behind us before returning to the river bank for a picnic on the grass.
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| A picnic with a view of the Spanish bank |
From here it was a short walk up the hill to the fortified border town of Valença, with its ramparts similar to those I saw earlier this summer in Briançon, and in fact these were also designed by Vaubon. Every other shop in the town seemed to sell towels and sheets! From the the northern end of the ramparts we could see the Minho below us and the international bridge constructed by Eiffel (the same one as the tower).
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| View of the Minho from Valença |
Goodbye Portugal!
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| One foot in Portugal, one foot in Spain |
On the other side, in Tui, we visited the Cathedral - and the bar across from it - before retiring to our home for the night, Albergue Convento do Camiño, in a former monastery building. We took the receptionist's advice and had an excellent dinner at Restaurante El Molino.
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| Caldo gallego |
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| Xoubias fritas |
Am following you. I will be back at some point to take notes on where you slept ... but first the via Francigena. Once addicted to these hikes, you are always looking for the next one! Beautiful pictures. I was not sure about this Caminho but your pictures have made me change my mind. It is on my list. Keep on trekkin'. Cheers.
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