Day 2 Vila do Conde to Fao - June 19

The yellow arrows were better placed today and also I was able to get an earlier start both of which helped a lot. The hostel price of 10 EUR included breakfast and given that we were leaving before they were to serve it they gave us breakfast to go in a bag. It was a veritable feast! In the bag was yogurt, juice, bread, margarine, jam and an apple. What a nice surprise to have that bag waiting for me when I left at 6:30 in the morning.

I would highly recommend the Belamar Hostel. Nice rooms, a place to do your laundry and great breakfast to go.

The way between Vila do Conda and Povoa de Varzim reminded me a bit of Fort Laurderdale. A beach town with lots of condos. The nice thing about the so far 40+ km north of Porto is that they have kept the beaches unobstructed by buildings. All condos are on the east side of the road and to the left of the road and the walkway is the beach and all the beach concessions. There was a side benefit to this and I was able to walk for the first few hours on the east side of the street in the shade of the buildings.

There was a tile mural wall at the point at Povoa de Varzim. I spent quite a while examining each of the many large tiles on the mural.

This is an example of the tiles on the mural. Each depicted a historical scene in the community - fishing, storms , politicians and sinking vessels of note.

As I moved from the built up resort area to the fishing villages I saw some men drying sea weed. The black spot is sea weed - I saw men pulling it out of the sea and laying it out to dry.

The end product - dried sea weed which was being rolled up and carted off.

Perhaps the sea weed was carted off 10 km down the road to the fields I walked through where it might be used as fertilizer. I walked for 16 km away from the ocean the most of which was an intensively farmed market garden area. Too bad, because we were routed down a road with no shoulder and lots of traffic taking these veg to the stores.

I was rewarded with a walk through a pine forest. I stopped for a while, let my feet rest and ate my orange.

There was a bit of a mix up about the hostel. We had reserved the night before, I thought a hostel in the town of Esposende. Turns out Esposende is a municipality as well as a town and the reservation was in the town of Fao, 3 km short of Esposende. Fortunately one of my fellow perigrinos caught me passing through the town of Fao and let me know that this was where the lodging was. No so lucky a few of the other perigrinos who walked to Esposende and had to cab back to the lodgings. It does mean that tomorrow will have a few extra km. *sigh*. I am having a few problems with blisters and a sore spot on my shoulder due to the chafing of my pack. I need to keep my daily journey under 25 km if I am to keep these problems in check

The bridge to the town of Esposende. Tomorrow morning I will be crossing this bridge, my destination will be Viana do Castelo.

 

Posted with Blogsy