One of the ubiquitous things about the Portuguese Camino are Pasteis de Nata – the flakey, custard-y, and utterly divine custard tarts that are uniquely Portuguese. Days 4 and 5 from Esposende to Caminha were my last two days in Portugal before the trail crossed into Spain, so I decided to prioritze consumption of Pasteis de Nata as my primary source of energy before leaving Portugal.
Day 4: Esposende to Viana do Castelo – 28KM
I woke up to Day 4 on the Portuguese Camino Coastal Route to forebodingly cloudy skies. The hostel cleaning lady had come in as I was packing up and told me “It’s going to rain”. Ugh. On the day I need to walk 28KM. The walk through Esposende took me through a very different eco-system than the days before the area was characterized by marshlands, and there was even a river walkway you could walk on to observe nature. I had gotten in to the habit of leaving the hostel without breakfast – not even a coffee. This way, I could motivate myself to be faster in the morning in order to get a coffee and food on the road. Given I am in Portugal, it has become something of a tradition to get a Meia de leite (coffee with milk) with a Pasteis de Nata whenever possible. Given I would be in Europe – and burning 2000 calories hiking 6 hours a day, I was going to have pasteis de nata whenever possible.
A few kilometers in, I decided I had earned my morning coffee and pasteis de nata. I went into a beautiful beachside bar right on the Camino called “Dunas Bar”. The place was full of pilgrims. A meia de leite and pasteis de nata ran me just Euro 2.70, and they had a clean washroom to boot. Definitely recommend a stop here. They also have actual breakfast food. In lieu of one big breakfast, and frankly in lieu of lunch, I decided this was the day I was going to exclusively subsist on pasteis da nata as much as possible because why not? YOLO. Also looking back – no regrets – and I wish I could do it more often. Who needs any other food than the heavenly delight of pasteis de nata when on the Portugese Camino?
Shortly after leaving the cafe in Laje, I really started to notice something confusing going on with the yellow arrows that point Pilgirms towards Santiago. A lot of times, the arrows were pointing the opposite way of where the GPS on my Camino Ninja app was directing me. I caulked this up to the fact that there was at least 3 variants of the Portuguese Camino – and I know there is some competition among them for having pilgrims go one way over the other. Pilgrims = business, and business = money. The most confusing arrow mishap was crossing the bridge onto between Braga district and the Viana do Castelo district. As soon as you crossed the picturesque stone bridge, there were several large and welcoming signs welcoming you to Viana do Castelo – but also pointing south. I started walking in the direction of the arrows, and then notice I was veering off the course of the Senda Litorel route – and likely towards the Camino da Costa route.
The last 10KM towards Viana do Castelo was where my trusty Camino Ninja app was not so trusty anymore. The beach section right before we turned into the last 5-6KM before the city limits was not really navigable with the app. Eventually I found my way through reasoning that so long as I followed the water, I could not go wrong. Eventually I made it through the beach section and found a lush trail through a forested section which went on for about 5KM before I hit the city limits.
Today I will have to cross the “Ponte Eiffel” into the city of Viana do Castelo – the bridge is nearly 1KM long and I could already see the Pilgrims crossing like little ants across the bridge as I approached. I was exhausted by time I approached the bridge. It was less than 2KM to go before I was to reach the municipal albergue, but my feet were starting to feel like they had cement booties on.
All that fatigue dissipated almost immediately once I got on the tiny pedestrian sidewalk to cross the bridge. There were no guardrails between the sidewalk and the raging traffic coming towards you. Just a few reflective markers that will not protect you at all should you lose your balance or should a car lose its path. Almost instantly my body filled with the kind of adrenaline reserved for life-or-death situations, and all the aches and pains I felt from walking over 25KM went away and I crossed the bridge in a hyper-alert state.
What was crazy was occasionally there would be another pedestrian coming the other way and we would have to literally dance around each other on the less than 1M wide sidewalk while traffic screamed by beside us. Sometimes we’d get lucky and the onslaught of traffic would be slowed by a cyclist, but most of the time it just felt like I was holding my breath. Just as I reached the end of the bridge I saw a man on a scooter on the sidewalk coming from the other direction. The yellow arrow for the turn-off down the stairs off the bridge was just 2 meters ahead – and so was the man on the scooter… “oh man… I’ve survived the bridge… please let me also survive getting OFF the bridge” I thought, as I shot the man a pleading look and pointed towards the left where I was just going to try to scoot out of his way. He nodded, and I ran down the stairs.
The Albergue de Peregrinos Sao Joao Da Cruz dos Caminhos (Municipal Albergue of Viana do Castelo) was thankfully just a 5 minute walk from the bridge. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got into the Albergue and the woman did not immediately turn me away. It was already 6:30pm and I knew this albergue only had 25 beds on a 1st come 1st served basis. I got the 3rd to last bed. If you would like to pre-book accommodations, the Pousada da Juventude de Viana do Castelo is actually slightly cheaper the municipal albergue and also well-reviewed.
The hostel was an ajoined building next to a large church and was spacious and clean. There was a paid washer/dryer, communal area – sadly strictly indoors, small kitchen, and ample showers and toilets.
There’s a great restaurant called Tasquinha Sabor do Kamba just a 2 minute walk from the hostel featured a 9 Euro meal and half-bottles of house wine for 1.5 Euro – and was excellent. The restaurant is also featured on John Brierley’s guide.
Day 5: Viana do Castelo to Caminha – 30KM
The Municipal Albergue had a check-out time of 8am, so I had my alarm for 6:30am in order to be ready earlier. By 7:45am I was out the door – earliest yet. The walk along the Viana do Castelo waterfront was tranquil, the route went from paved asphalt, to forested trail, to sand, to boardwalk, and eventually to the dreaded cobblestone.
My beloved Camino Ninja app was not very helpful today, I had to guesstimate the path many times when the red line on the app had me going into trail-less bush. At one point, I was following the red line into what looked like a rather dubious overgrown trail when I head a whistle: it was a local – and he pointed in the direction where saw a board walk that took me down a stone seaside path and eventually to a beautiful dirt trail with the ocean on one side a beautiful heatherfields on the other – I would have completely missed this beautiful section had it not been for the helpful local
There were not many restaurants and cafes between Viana de Castela and the next large town of Vila Praia de Ancora. However, there was a lovely seaside restaurant called Camarao where I stopped for lunch.
After stopping for lunch, I tried to follow the seaside route towards the town of Vila Praia de Ancora, but as has happened numerous times over the past few days, the Camino app trail was taking me over a completely unmarked area that was just beach sand dunes.
At some point I came to a junction where the yellow camino arrows pointed towards route that went inland, which went the opposite way of the camino ninja app which showed a shorter route across the beach.
While it was a little unsettling to go the opposite direction of the yellow arrows; I persisted as the town was within 1-2KM at that point and I could see it. The only question was whether a bridge that purportedly existed over the river before the town actually existed – as it had on the app.
As I struggled over the sand dunes, I heard a whistle coming from the way of the main trail. A concerned male pilgrim was looking at me with concern and indicating I had gone the wrong way. Given I had good results from listening to someone tell me I was going the wrong way earlier in the day – I decided to follow the previous practice and backtrack to the main trail. Navigating the sand dunes without the certainty of success was a 50/50 success at best anyway
The inland trail was rather nice – on well-maintained boardwalk over a jungle-y area. I caught up with the pilgrim who “saved” me just as we were reaching Vila Praia de Ancora, and we both then clearly saw there was a pedestrian bridge over the river from the beach. He held his head in an exasperated fashion lamented that “There’s a bridge!”
I told him it was ok… and that it wasn’t like I was absolutely certain about the sand dunes anyway. (I would regret following his advice later when I crossed the 30KM mark during my extended walk for the day, but you make your choices and you stand by them)
I popped into the town of Vila Praia de Ancora to see if I could find an arch strap for my left foot, which was feeling occasional pangs of pain – potentially the start of plantar fasciitis. While I was not successful in finding what I needed – the town was absolutely stunning. The town square was decorated with magenta pink flowers – it was a vision. I also noticed a lot more people were greeting me with “Buen Camino” – the warmest embrace of pilgrims I have seen anywhere since Porto.
I had booked a bed at Albergue Bom Caminha this evening in Caminha, and also agreed to take the communal Pilgrim’s dinner at 7pm. With all the random mapping detours, and my long lunch break, I was starting to get under the gun in terms of timing. I raced through the last 5KM section through a lovely forest and along a beautiful boardwalk towards Caminha – and got to the albergue at 6:45pm.
Of note: there were tons of misleading signs in the last few kilometers before Caminha – like the local teens decided to confuse tired pilgrims by spraying yellow arrows in the wrong direction and misdirecting them. Of course Caminha is one of the worse places to do this as many of the Pilgrims will be making an evening stop here as it is the point where the ferries to Spain leave – meaning arriving pilgrims will be even more tired if this is their last stop.
