Anything published on coastal route?

[dustylee]

I am trying to plan a walk from Porto to Santiago for myself and a couple of friends, but I am uncertain about whether we can really walk the coast after the first stage. I guess I am asking a couple of questions: is there anything published with the route & places to stay? are there any pilgrim albergues along the way? And is it any more difficult than walking the more traditional route. I am the only one who has walked any of the camino routes in the past & want to make choices that will be fun & not too difficult for my friends. I think we want to do no more than about 20 kms/day. Any ideas, recommendations, etc. I do want to be able to stay in hostels since I think that is a big part of the experience that I want to share.
dusty

 

[MendiWalker]

Try this http://camino.xacobeo.es/caminos/camino-portugues-por-la-costa

Buen Camino!

 

[MendiWalker]

You also have this book http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-el-camino-portugues-de-la-costa/9788460749004/894295

Buen Camino!

 

[musicman]

I am trying to plan a walk from Porto to Santiago for myself and a couple of friends, but I am uncertain about whether we can really walk the coast after the first stage. I guess I am asking a couple of questions: is there anything published with the route & places to stay? are there any pilgrim albergues along the way? And is it any more difficult than walking the more traditional route. I am the only one who has walked any of the camino routes in the past & want to make choices that will be fun & not too difficult for my friends. I think we want to do no more than about 20 kms/day. Any ideas, recommendations, etc. I do want to be able to stay in hostels since I think that is a big part of the experience that I want to share.
dusty

I walked the Coast this September, it is pretty well signed.best start is Metro to Matosinhos Mercardo, then walk over the swing bridge and follow the Arrows, to the sea.Just keep the sea on your left!
My Blog is "ensuitepilgrim.com/Wordpress".There is also a Thread on this site.
E-mail me at "jgtwort@yahoo.co.uk" if you would like a spreadsheet,re accommodation.It is a great Caminho.

 

[SYates]

CSJ has the Cicerone Guide to the Northern Routes here: http://www.csj.org.uk/acatalog/The_CSJ_Bookshop_Pilgrim_Guides_7.html Hope that helps and Buen Camino! SY

 

[dustylee]

You also have this book http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-el-camino-portugues-de-la-costa/9788460749004/894295

Buen Camino!

This is exactly what I am looking for (although a newer edition would be preferred), but it does not seem to be currently available. Does anyone know where I might purchase a copy?
Thanks

 

[dustylee]

I walked the Coast this September, it is pretty well signed.best start is Metro to Matosinhos Mercardo, then walk over the swing bridge and follow the Arrows, to the sea.Just keep the sea on your left!
My Blog is "ensuitepilgrim.com/Wordpress".There is also a Thread on this site.
E-mail me at "jgtwort@yahoo.co.uk" if you would like a spreadsheet,re accommodation.It is a great Caminho.

I also tried to get your blog, but I got an error message.

 

[Former member 22438]

I am trying to plan a walk from Porto to Santiago for myself and a couple of friends, but I am uncertain about whether we can really walk the coast after the first stage. I guess I am asking a couple of questions: is there anything published with the route & places to stay? are there any pilgrim albergues along the way? And is it any more difficult than walking the more traditional route. I am the only one who has walked any of the camino routes in the past & want to make choices that will be fun & not too difficult for my friends. I think we want to do no more than about 20 kms/day. Any ideas, recommendations, etc. I do want to be able to stay in hostels since I think that is a big part of the experience that I want to share.
dusty

Your question could be a bit confusing.
There is a caminho da costa which starts in Porto and follows the entire coastline all away up to Baiona before it joins the interior route in Redondela where it goes on to Santiago

The other is a trail of one day from Porto to Vila de Conde along the ocean (about 30 kms) and than turns inland to Sāo Pedro de Rates up to Barcelos and Ponte de Lima and so on.

The last has been published in John Brierley 's travelguide caminho Portuges as a detour at the first day, leaving Porto. Instead of following the busy roads outside Porto the detour follows the Douro river and the Atlantic coast . Of course you can take the metro to Mercado and start at the swing bridge ..follow the yellow arrows from there and after 500 meters you'll see the ocean. Great walk !

 

[dustylee]

Your question could be a bit confusing.
There is a caminho da costa which starts in Porto and follows the entire coastline all away up to Baiona before it joins the interior route in Redondela where it goes on to Santiago

The other is a trail of one day from Porto to Vila de Conde along the ocean (about 30 kms) and than turns inland to Sāo Pedro de Rates up to Barcelos and Ponte de Lima and so on.

The last has been published in John Brierley 's travelguide caminho Portuges as a detour at the first day, leaving Porto. Instead of following the busy roads outside Porto the detour follows the Douro river and the Atlantic coast . Of course you can take the metro to Mercado and start at the swing bridge ..follow the yellow arrows from there and after 500 meters you'll see the ocean. Great walk !

I saw the last one in the travel guide but was interested in finding out more about the former which follows the coast for a longer time. Any ideas about how to get more info re that route?
Thanks-
Dusty

 

[Former member 22438]

You 'll find it on the internet. There are some websites in Spanish with maps and information. I was intending to walk the coastal.we came all along from Lisbon and walked from Matosinhos to Vila do Conde along the ocean.during those 20 kms we noticed that you hardly meet any people. Most villages were deserted . Most are summerhouses .so not the right caminho feeling anyway when we walked there last May.
So on the bridge of Vila do Conde at the very last moment we decided to walk the interior route to Rates. We do not know what we missed along the coast but got the right feel meeting up a lot of people, staying at casa da Fernanda, visiting Braga and walked off road between Ponte de Lima and Rubiaes..the best part.

 

[renegadepilgrim]

The true coastal route is a bear...I lasted until Ancora before calling it quits and heading inland to Valenca last year...I walked in the fall, so that was part of the problem. There were few pilgrims and few albergues too.

 

[Ella_leah]

We are about to head out to do this route tomorrow - well that's what we are planning anyway! I will be blogging about it along the way on www.ellaleah.wordpress.com so will try to give some information there! There are a couple of good threads about the coastal route which really helped me in my planning. The Coastal Route in July is one of them. I would start by reading through that and the links provided in that!

Good luck

 

[renegadepilgrim]

Good luck! If you actually do blog more than what you have on your website (you might consider filling out the About page, btw), I will be sure to include it in www.caminodesantiagopress.com

 

[Ella_leah]

Good luck! If you actually do blog more than what you have on your website (you might consider filling out the About page, btw), I will be sure to include it in www.caminodesantiagopress.com

Yeh - I will get to the about page. I only set this up just before I left in a bit of a hurry! I will clean it up soon! Thanks!

 

[frdaz]

I am trying to plan a walk from Porto to Santiago for myself and a couple of friends, but I am uncertain about whether we can really walk the coast after the first stage. I guess I am asking a couple of questions: is there anything published with the route & places to stay? are there any pilgrim albergues along the way? And is it any more difficult than walking the more traditional route. I am the only one who has walked any of the camino routes in the past & want to make choices that will be fun & not too difficult for my friends. I think we want to do no more than about 20 kms/day. Any ideas, recommendations, etc. I do want to be able to stay in hostels since I think that is a big part of the experience that I want to share.
dusty

Get the Brierley guide. That will have all the info you need. We did the coastal route last year, and it was beautiful and it meets up with the main route on day 3.
Buen camino.

 

[renegadepilgrim]

Get the Brierley guide. That will have all the info you need. We did the coastal route last year, and it was beautiful and it meets up with the main route on day 3.
Buen camino.

...there is an actual coastal route that follows all the way up the coast. Brierley doesn't even remotely begin to cover that and most of the info out there is in Portuguese or Spanish. I know of a few people who were supposed to be working on something for the CSJ guides (was it johnnywalker and rebekah?) but I have yet to see anything from them. It would be nice to have something in English with decent maps...the Caminho da Costa is absolutely gorgeous, but it is a little more remote and there aren't as many albergues, though people were very kind and there are options of places to stay in the larger cities.

 

[peregrina2000]

Johnnie Walker's blog has collected a lot of information on the Coastal Route. http://www.johnniewalker-santiago.blogspot.com/search/label/Camino Portugués Coastal route

I have offered to help with the updates of the Portugues now that I'm almost done with the Lisbon to Porto part, but the probem is that I haven't walked the Coastal route -- Is there anyone who has walked it who would want to help out?

 

[renegadepilgrim]

I've walked the Caminho da Costa to Ancora. Happy to help. Let me know.

 

[haikutaxi]

We did the coastal route in October ... Porto to Vigo (crossing into Spain by ferry from Caminha to A Guarda). From Vigo the route goes inland to Redondela and from there follows the Caminho Portugese.

 

[peregrina2000]

I've walked the Caminho da Costa to Ancora. Happy to help. Let me know.

Thanks for the offer. I think I will start working on the coastal route first and leave the "traditional" Porto to Santiago route for later. I´m just going to be compiling information, but once I have a skeletal format, I can let you veterans go to it and see if we can turn it into a real guide. Thanks! Laurie

 

[gaulsdog]

Hi Laurie.
Did you ever do the coastal route from Porto after the above post.

I am going to do it this year either June or Sept and would appreciate any feed back if available

Thanks

Nickie

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, Nickie,
I decided to leave the CSJ guide as is, sticking to the traditional routes with Part 1 Lisbon-Porto and Part 2 Porto-Santiago. I haven't walked the coastal route, and I soon learned that it would be impossible for me to write a guide to a route I don't know at all.

There's a fair number of people on the forum who have walked the route, so maybe someone will take on the task of gathering information and putting it together for others. Buen camino, Laurie

 

[renegadepilgrim]

I'll be posting about the coastal route on my website this month. I'm giving a talk on it at a local outfitter. I thought Johnnywalker and Rebekah were working on one too. Guides are a lot of work!

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, renegadepilgrim,
I agreed to do the CSJ updates since JohnnieWalker and Reb have so many other projects and that took the coastal route off the list. So the field is wide open for you. Looking forward to reading your blog -- this is a route that has a lot of appeal.

Buen camino, Laurie

 

[renegadepilgrim]

Not gonna happen. I'm tired of working for free. my blog will have to do.

 

[gaulsdog]

That's the challenge then
, walk this beautiful way and write a blog(something I have never done before) that Laurie approves off.
I cannot understand why this way isn't more travelled, but maybe I am about to find out the hard way


Sent from my iPhone using Camino de Santiago Forum

 

[renegadepilgrim]

Because there isn't a map or directions in English. That's why. It's also not way marked well and easy to get lost if you're not paying attention. I only made it to Ancora before giving up and getting on the central route after a particularly bad day of getting lost. Time of year also played a part in that. All stuff I'll talk about on my website.

 

[dustylee]

We are planning to do the Porto to Santiago walk beginning mid-May & will only do the first day along the coast (weather permitting). I have been planning the trip for myself & 4 friends, so I have been trying to get an itinerary together that would meet everyone's differing needs. I think we are planning to stay the first night in a new hostel in Povoa which is a bit shorter than the first normal stop. But we have decided to give ourselves a few extra days so that we can take a day off & will also use a taxi to carry some of the luggage rather than using a luggage service which requires we make all our plans in advance. Getting excited & hoping it starts to warm up here in New Mexico so I can start doing some longer walks. Hope you have a great trip.

 

[kellyz]

I walked this route last July, alone at first but met some wonderful fellow pilgrims. It was not too physically demanding, but there was quite a bit of road and that got to my feet. The allbergues were basic, which I liked, and I had some of the best meals in my life. Try to get your teeth into done gooseneck barnacles in redondela at the restaurant down the hill from the convent (it's the only restaurant with camino signage). The convent was a dream come true. Private, clean, peaceful and cheap.
We used Louis' guide, posted in this forum.
Annie, I'd love to help out.
Best!

 

[JSM]

We did the coastal route in October ... Porto to Vigo (crossing into Spain by ferry from Caminha to A Guarda). From Vigo the route goes inland to Redondela and from there follows the Caminho Portugese.

Hi - I"m thinking of doing this route in October 2014. Can you tell me more about the weather at that time, how many people were around, whether you think it would be OK for a woman on her own, and any other tips. Much appreciated.

 

[haikutaxi]

Hi - I"m thinking of doing this route in October 2014. Can you tell me more about the weather at that time, how many people were around, whether you think it would be OK for a woman on her own, and any other tips. Much appreciated.

Lots of rain (but that was happening everywhere). We didn't meet any other pilgrims until we turned inland to connect with the traditional route. Itinerary with comments is posted in the forum and Johnnie Walker has added it to his guide to the coastal route too.