Walked: 6.9km (83.5km) | 1h22m (18h4m)
Followed: 22km|22km
We walked 15.7km today but only 6.9km on the Camino. I’ve only logged the Camino kilometres above. We decided last night that we’d do some “following” rather than walking today for several reasons: we’d walked a long way yesterday; today’s stage was 28km long – with a boat crossing towards the end, and as it’s a Sunday the last boat from Caminha across to Spain was at 3:30 Portuguese time (4:30 Spanish time). It would have been tough to make it on time! So, we explored Viana do Costello in the morning and took the 14:26 train to cover the main part of the stage. That journey took all of 20 minutes!
Weather was a key feature today. We decided to go up to the Santa Luzia Cathedral, which dominates Viana, for breakfast. I took the picture above on arrival but an hour and a half later the clouds had rolled in off the sea and it looked like this. The low cloud stayed for the whole day.
Mass was underway in the cathedral.
We travelled up to the cathedral and back down by a 100 year old single carriage funicular.
Back down in Viana we popped into the Museu do Traje (Costume Museum). It was fantastic to see original traditional costumes and read about linen and wool weaving and lace making – it was really well done. Jane was amused to find herself in similar garb – but with the handmade white lace stockings and apron missing!
We liked Viana – we were not alone in that. Apparently, there is quite an ‘expat’ community. We met an American ‘refugee’, who had lost everything in the USA during COVID when her yoga studios collapsed, with the loss of 70 jobs, her house, her health and a lot of her savings. She’d left to escape from ‘the craziness’ of American politics and societal stress – and said she lives very simply now and would never go back.
The shot below features the cathedral on the hill. It took me several goes to capture it – as I had to wait for a gap in the clouds but as you can see it’s still not totally clear.
At 14:26, after a quick snack of savoury pastries, we jumped on a train to Caminha (20mins). We had half an hour to find our boat taxi to Spain, and followed the map link, supplied via our booking … to a barren roadside next to the sea. There was no evidence at all of any organisation offering boat crossings. By now the mist had thickened and it was quite blustery. We thought that this couldn’t possibly be the right place. We waited a few minutes and a tiny boat appeared out of the gloom. This was our taxi. We were soon joined by a Swedish couple … and their bikes!
And with bikes loaded and…
… with life jackets on, looking more confident than we felt, we headed off across the choppy water into the gloom. We didn’t sink!
On the Spanish side it was a bit clearer but still misty. We wouldn’t have noticed we’d crossed an international boundary except for the fact that our watches went forward an hour and people started speaking a language we could understand (Spanish). This just reminded us again of the idiocy of Brexit.
We decided to take the long scenic route to the hotel, around the headland, through forest and boardwalks, and past Roman remains of seaside salt pans. The Spanish do tree art, which I’m not sure I like.
After nearly two hours of walking we arrived in A Guarda still shrouded in mist.
Our hotel was the most upmarket yet, an ex-nunnery in the centre of A Guarda, Hotel Convento de San Benito Monumento. It still features much religious art and architecture, very sensitively renovated.
They offered a welcome glass of port on arrival in their lounge and I was able to start writing this blog straight away!
After being shown to our rather delightful room we ventured out to find something to eat and went into the Harp Celtic Cafeteria and Cervecervía. This was an excellent choice but rather noisy. Jane claimed I was hard of hearing and asked if we could move upstairs where it was quieter – a good move, as we had the first floor to ourselves with a view of the harbour.
I say we had it to ourselves, we did initially until a single man joined us. (I’m not sure if he was hard of hearing too and didn’t feel I could ask). Anyway, it turns out he was a Ukrainian living (unhappily) in Amsterdam. We asked if he would go back to Ukraine and he said it was difficult as a division had developed between those who had stayed after the Russian invasion and those who had not. He also said that there was a lot of mental trauma in Ukraine and not enough support. Very insightful and sad.
After our meal (oxtail – which was amazing) and rather too much dessert, we wandered back to our hotel along the side of the harbour. Tomorrow we have a shortish walking day and for once, a late check out.
