Walked: 17.6km (30.0km) | 3h34m (7h8m)
Followed: 0km (0km)
The fish market below us got going at 6:30 this morning so we had to pop in to look on our way to breakfast. It was incredible.
Complete with live fish, crabs and lobsters.
Once we started walking (9:30) it was another day of keeping the sea to our left and, like yesterday, most of the trail was boardwalk. This is designed to keep walkers away from the nesting birds, lizards and flora and fauna of the sand dune environment.
The boardwalk featured a glulam bridge (laminated, glued timber) which will be of interest to our neighbour Ben.
A contrast to yesterday were the fishing villages we passed through and you got a real sense of communities with strong links to the sea.
There were several homages to those lost at sea including this rather spectacular one up the trail in Vilo do Conde (more on Vilo do Conde below).
We were lucky to catch two memorable nature moments today: a cormorant drying its wings;
And hundreds (thousands?) of frogs making heck of a racket next to the waters of an estuary. Here’s a video – play with the volume turned up.
If you zoom in on this picture you can see two or three of the frogs.
Breakfast this morning in the cafe opposite our accommodation was fine for patisserie lovers… so we spent the first couple of hours of our walk craving our usual yoghurt and fruit.
This craving was satisfied very adequately at a place called Noshi (sic) in the lovely Vilo do Conde… with a zero beer thrown in for me!
Noshi is an upmarket. beautifully designed place (no fellow pilgrims here!) that did “fruit and yoghurt bowls” which were amazing.
Vilo do Conde had a great feel to it and had we been a bit more ambitious we might have done well to spend our first night here.
There was an interesting looking ship, complete with canon, and a museum which we would have been tempted to spend time in but it was lunchtime so they were closed.
Just a few more kilometres along the trail and we arrived at our accommodation for tonight – “Sardines and Friends”.
This is a much more traditional set up than last night – an en-suite double room with a tiny balcony, overlooking a picturesque side street, a mini kitchen and en-suite. We ended the day with a bit of very clever ingredient selection by Jane at the tiny supermarket close by and we ate on (well next to) our balcony and the laundry rail. There are only so many unidentified sea creatures you can eat in 3 days…
