Day 1: A pre-dawn departure from Porto and itâs exciting to be back on the camino and to walk through a virtually empty city after it was bursting at the seams with tourists yesterday afternoon.
I take the alternative river exit and Iâm glad I did, even though the absence of arrows at the outset of a camino is slightly disconcerting â not for wayfinding, because thatâs quite obvious, but because it doesnât help you land on the right side of âDoes this feel like a camino?â when there are no arrows. But soon I pass three Italian pilgrims and we exchange âbom caminhosâ, and a camino it is.
Where the river meets the ocean at Foz do Douro is my favourite part of the stage, because there are lighthouses and fishermen and a surprisingly interesting fort to explore all to myself (not to mention the fabulously-named Instituto de Socorros a NĂĄufragos â something like the âShipwreck Rescue Instituteâ). Foz feels like a real place, unlike Matosinhos, which comes soon enough and is quite the shock.
There are beaches by now and itâs August so theyâre jam-packed with holiday-makers, even though the beaches arenât especially nice and are surrounded by industrial cranes and silos and ugly modern buildings. The beaches and umbrellas and people and development seem to go on forever, and by 9:15am Iâve already seen two Pizza Huts and this isnât the Portugal I know. But there are arrows and a Lidl in Matosinhos so I take those little wins, stock up, and move on.
Then the boardwalks begin and the rhythm for the rest of the stage is set. Walking a camino on wooden planks is new for me and not my preferred surface but itâs still pretty easy walking because itâs not hot and you canât exactly get lost on boardwalks. As I approach SĂŁo Paio the holiday crowds start thinning out a bit and it seems more low key and thereâs a nice estuary full of bird life, all of which is more to my liking.
Before I know it, I reach my destination, the fishing village of Vila ChĂŁ, and itâs not even 2pm yet and if that was really 26km, it was as much of a breeze as the one coming off the ocean.
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