Winter Portugues Coastal

Christmas always brings issues as businesses often close up. Even some albergues close specifically only at Christmas. I would very definitely have a plan for where to stay.

IMHO, plan your walking stages, and budget to stay at commercial lodging (i.e.hostal or hotel) on those key days. The chances are excellent they will be open to service people visiting relatives in the area.

For example, you are sure to find hotels / hostals, etc. open at Ponte de Lima, Barcelos, Pontevedra, etc. In between, or albergues at the lowest cost end of things will likely be closed, unless they are attached to a bar /cafe.

You can use booking.com, gronze, etc. to locate places and contact them early to verify they will be open.

If anyone else has better ideas or information, please jump in.

CarolineMathieson said:

I am thinking of continuing walking the camino portugues after Caminha in the week before xmas. What problems, if any, can I expect on xmas eve and xmas day itself? Will there be anywhere to stay?

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We walked the Coastal in mid Jan this year, crossed over to Spain on the last boat on Sun, got lucky there as there are no budget ones on Mon so make sure your know the boat schedule not to get stuck in Portugal. A Guarda albergue didn't have a hospitaliero, not sure if that was a permanent or temporarily thing in winter, we had to call the number and police came to open it up for us. All/most of the municipal albergues in Galicia should be open over X-mas as far as I've heard but better to check it out, the private ones could be tricky though. I'd probably book it for X-mass, stay somewhere warm. As for walking make sure you use the bars on the way when you see them open as that may take a while for the next one to appear. Have some emergency snacks for the road. That's my daily blog starting from A Guarda in Jan, pics are international https://anna-camino.livejournal.com/6348.html Bom Caminho!

The ferry could be an issue too. But having walked in January I turned up the river from Caminha mostly along a cycle track to Valenca and then along the central. But I had seen enough sea walking from Porto