Coimbra

 Jake awoke feeling a little better, but I drove us all to Coimbra, about a 2 ½ hour drive.  Traffic wasn’t bad although the one rest area we stopped at was very busy.  Jake navigated us to Sapientia Hotel in the Ciudad Alta near the University.  Fortunately we got a parking spot right outside the hotel!  We had a nice lunch at the hotel restaurant in the courtyard. Linda got a pretty dish of cauliflower with baba ganoush and a pumpkin puree and the rest of us got salads with either tuna or shrimp. The hotel has very modern rooms and ours was on a corner with great views over the city.

Night view from the Sapientia hotel rooftop

Sunset view from our room

Coimbra is a medieval era town built on a hill along a river.  The cobbled streets are narrow and curved with stairways in between roads.  Not an easy city to learn your way around initially, but the downtown is really not that big, so by day 2 I had a better sense of where I was.  With the help of my phone I navigated to a couple shopping streets and back and made sure that the botanical garden would be open tomorrow.  There was a small antiques market taking place on one street with lots of dishes, linens, costume jewelry, and miscellaneous other things.  A surprising number of stores seemed to be closed, even though it was Saturday afternoon.

Coimbra city street

Under an arch in Coimbra

Jake took a nap and I picked him up around 4pm.  We wanted to visit the municipal market which online says it is open until 2am, but nearly all the stalls were closed when we got there and just a few things were open on the second level.  We also failed to find the ticket office for the University.  I think it was moved because of some construction.  We did find a pastry/ice cream shop and a drug store to buy decongestant. There are a lot of pastry stores in town.   We saw one small student protest about costs of housing and education.

By evening, Linda wasn’t feeling well and Jake didn’t want to face walking the hills of Coimbra again, so we had dinner at the hotel restaurant, indoors this time. By the time we went back to our room, a huge concert had started across the river.  It was a reunion of 3 bands that had started during some Portuguese teen show maybe a decade ago.  The crowd and music were loud enough that we almost felt we were at the concert.  It didn’t end until after midnight.   During the day over the weekend, there was a near constant high pitched whine of model race cars on a track across the river.

In the morning Jake, Jim, and I found the ticket office for the University building tours.  The University started in the 1100s when Coimbra was the capital of Portugal, although wasn’t there permanently until the 1500s. We got a ticket that allowed us in to all of the sites, but the library, with timed entry, wasn’t available until 4pm.  We visited the old chemistry building.  It had an exhibit about the Jesuit’s missions to other countries and one on light and matter.  The Jesuits operated the University from the mid-1500s until they were expelled from Portugal in the 1700s.  I think that the University is now operated by Portugal.

The University chapel

Thesis defense room

Cabinet of curiosities

Cabinets of curiosities

Plaza of the University's oldest buildings, formal royal palace

Gate to the courtyard

Old chemistry building

 

We then saw the Cabinet of Curiosities room that features cabinets put together by current professors and students from objects in the museum’s collection.  Unfortunately there wasn’t any explanation about why a particular selection of objects had been chosen for display.  Interestingly, the stone staircase had lots of student carvings in it (old graffiti).  Jim and I went into the baroque chapel, and finally we all went into the Royal Palace which now has rooms where doctoral students defend their theses and for convocations.

From there, the Botanical Garden! One side borders an old aqueduct, and the rest spills down a steep hillside to the river.  There is a large glasshouse and a “cold house” that can only be entered by special arrangement.  The cold house was interesting -  a wood slatted structure with a stone wall that has water dripping down it keeps the climate suitable for shade and moisture loving plants that need cooler temperatures.

The beds for plant families seemed not be tended and were not accessible.  You can walk through a symmetrical formal garden and a garden that has beds for growing edible plants.  There are some huge old trees and there was an exhibit about wood structure in different types of trees. There is also an area called the mata, sort of a woods/wild area.  Only part of that was open too.  There is a large, dark stand of bamboo, a small orchard area, and some overgrown areas.  The garden was very peaceful and shady.

Allee of lindens

Trough with native plants

Bamboo path

Glasshouse

Formal garden

Jake and I had lunch near the old cathedral at Restaurants Maria Portuguesa.  They have a little outdoor seating area with good people-watching.  The food was quite good.  We shared carrot soup and a roasted pork sandwich that came with sort of a pickled onion jam.  They also had chocolate mousse made with eggs instead of cream so we got that for dessert.  Very rich and tasty!

After that we just hung out at the hotel’s courtyard and read for awhile.  We said goodbye to Jim and Linda and drove to our hotel near the Porto Airport, OPO Porto Airport.  Quite a large and comfortable room!  The rental car return was a 600m away and we could walk back.  Tomorrow morning we take the 4am shuttle for our 6am flight.

Roadside near Aveiro where the fires had been when we arrived

Penedas Geres National Park

We rented a car in Viana do Castelo and drove east to Portugal’s first National Park, Peneda-Geres.  We stopped along the way in Barcelos for market day.  It’s supposed to be one of the largest markets in Europe, but isn’t.  It was fun to see the produce and plant vendors, but otherwise the market was mainly cheap clothing.   I think perhaps the favorite Portuguese vegetable this time of years is collard greens. Piles and piles of them at the market.

Collard greens for sale at the Barcelos Thursday market

We arrived at Pousada Sao Bento - Canicada around 2pm and they soon had both our rooms ready.  You can’t really walk anywhere around the hotel because it is on a very steep hill, so we rested in our rooms which had large balconies overlooking the hill and lake and park in the distance, and in the common area that has comfortable chairs and couches and huge glass windows.  The hotel was built in the 1950s and has a stone exterior and a vaulted timber frame roof over the common area.  It was too cold to swim in the pool with more rain showers the day we arrived.  Dinner service in the hotel restaurant begins at 7:30.  The service was excellent and they had good soup, but the vegetarian lasagna was mostly cheese and the grilled fish was a little overcooked although came with a nice selection of grilled vegetables.  

Succulent garden at the Pousada

The pousada at sunset

The next morning Jake was down for the day with a head cold.  Jim, Linda and I headed out for sightseeing and a hike after a delicious breakfast.  We stopped first at the surprisingly large Sao Bento church complex about 15 minutes away.  There is an old church opened in 1615.  There is also an enormous newer church, very modern with a large glass steeple.  It can accommodate thousands of worshipers.  We stopped in the hotel gift shop across the street and learned that Sao Bento = Saint Benedict.  There is a relic of him in the church.  In the gift shop you can buy candles and wax body parts to place in front of the Saint’s statue.  An ear costs about a euro.  There are also stalls outside that sell candles, herbal remedies, and food.I couldn’t resist buying a balm that contains bee venom and other herbs, good for all aches and pains.

View from the church balcony

One of the more modern mosaics about the life of St. Benedict

We continued up the narrow, winding road to the start of the Sarilhao Eagle trail (PR5).  It is a 9km loop trail and it partly follows the Geira Roman road, Via Nova XVIII.  The trail was pretty easy to follow.  It first passes by several snack bars and adventure parks and then goes through an old town with cobbled streets.  After a couple kilometers the trail goes across the hillsides and descends to a narrow lake created by a dam across a river.  

Stone pillar with Roman inscriptions

Roman road

The lake

It was really interesting to pass through the varied types of forests.  The more open areas have a mix of shrubs like a diminutive gorse, broom, and heather.  There was a steep, rocky downhill section through the twisted multi-trunked arbutus trees.  The lake level looked pretty low, but recent rainfall created a nice torrential waterfall on a hillside.  Going back up hill, we joined the Roman road lined with about a 4’ tall rock wall.  We speculated about why there needed to be a rock wall that tall along the road - erosion, protection from enemies??  That area had a lot of oaks and chestnut trees.  Another section had a dense growth of young pines,  Pinus pinaster, trees.  The trail also goes by old stones used by the Romans.  One was a mileage marker engraved with words.  The road went from Braga to Astorga in Spain. 

In a town, wood ribs holding up an awning

Ruined house

Arbutus forest

Girdled invasive acacias

shrubland

A stream along the trail

The trail had much more steepness than we thought it would from looking at the map online.  Linda found the perfect hiking stick along the way and I wished I had thought to bring Jake’s hiking poles with me.  But we finished the trail in about 4 hours none the worse for wear mostly.

We stopped for a small pizza and ice cream in Sao Bento before returning to the hotel.  We drove downhill for dinner to Tasquinha do Barbas after finding the closer Fonte de Amores closed.  The Tasquinha (tavern) had the standard Portuguese meals of grilled meats served with french fries and rice or rice and some other potato dish.  Jim and I tried a Vinho Verde red wine, served chilled, that had the slight effervescence typical of Vinho Verde.  Wine generally has been pretty inexpensive, around 5-7 euros for a large glass or 10 - 20 euros for a whole bottle.  All the wines have been very to pretty good, both red and white. You can get maduro (mature) red and whites, or verde, young, slightly effervescent wines.  There are plenty of locally made beers too.

Caminho Portuguesa Coastal Route

 We are hiking for five days along Portugal’s coastal pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.  We are taking the easy approach of getting our bags picked up and delivered to each night’s accommodation, and not feeling obligated to complete every stage.  Nor will we ever reach Santiago de Compostela.  We are hiking from Labruge, just north of Porto, to Castelo do Viana.  None of the four of us are Catholic, although the other couple we are hiking with were at least raised Catholic.  

The start of our Caminho experience, in Labruge

First though, we celebrated Jim and Linda’s arrival with dinner at Flow in Porto, a very elegant restaurant (more elegant than we had anticipated!) with a huge covered patio.  Flavored butters (including coffee flavored) accompanied breads.  Salads included one with duck prosciutto.  The tomato ceviche came with gazpacho poured around a pile of perfectly ripe tomatoes.  Then there was an excellent butternut squash risotto and other pastas and risottos. 

The route the Camino takes has been quite interesting and varied.  A taxi took us from Porto to the beach at Labruge, our starting point.  It was a very foggy day, so we could barely see the edge of the ocean. There’s a nice boardwalk most of the way with a detour on the landward side of the dunes for a few kilometers through scrubland while part of the boardwalk is being replaced.  We saw lots of other “pilgrims”.  We chatted briefly with a few people as we passed from the US, England, Ireland,, Australia, Canada and Denmark. Most people are in small groups or traveling singly.  Some are carrying large packs with all their gear, but many are like us just carrying day packs.  Most people you pass say hi or Bon Caminho.  The paths are signed with the scallop shell symbol or yellow arrows.

When we got to Arvore around lunch time we had two choices of eating establishments and chose the Special Park Restaurant and Lounge because it seemed like it had a more diverse menu.  We walked inland a few blocks and discovered that the restaurant is in a huge trailer park community.  I handed over my passport in order to get 4 passes to get to the restaurant.  There were a lot of people eating there and service was pretty slow.  Jake and Jim opted for one of the specials, beef with rice and black beans, and I opted for another, moelhas.  I had, unfortunately, confused moelhas with mexilhoes (mussels) and moelhas turned out to be chicken gizzards!  They were served in a sort of tomato sauce and really weren’t bad, just not what I was expecting.

We got to our hotel, the Santana,  just on the other side of the river from Vila do Conde around 3:30pm.  It was a nice, modern, place but it seemed a little odd that there was no way to avoid carrying suitcases up flights of stairs and no offers of assistance.  We are traveling pretty light, but I had strained my knee and resented the stairs.

We walked across the river and found a nice Italian restaurant, Mezza Luna,  for dinner near the river.  Linda and I split a goat cheese, honey and walnut pizza.  We slept soundly and went downstairs to a splendid breakfast buffet to prepare for the second leg of our hike.

Vila do Conde

Sunset over the river

Day 2

Before really getting underway, we stopped to see several sights in Vila do Condo.  There is a huge monastery turned 5 star hotel at the top of a hill overlooking the river, and several kilometer long stone pillared aqueduct that used to bring water to the monastery from a spring the next town over.  Online it seemed like the hotel had maintained some sort of museum about the monastery, but that turned out not to be the case.  On top of the building is a large sculpture of Saint Clara and an elephant.  According to the front desk, the elephant depicts a symbol of power.  We also stopped near the riverfront to see a replica of a traditional ship.  Vila do Condo was a ship building port, building many of the ships that the Portuguese empire sent out to colonize new lands.

Monastery turned hotel

Aqueduct

We resumed the Camino through town, passing along some charming stone paved streets.  The trail doesn’t return to the beach for about 4km.  It gradually passes through more modern neighborhoods and then through Povoa de Varzim.  We stopped for lunch in the main plaza at a sandwich place with some outdoor tables.  I tried the ubiquitous Francesinha, a toasted sandwich of cheese, ham and a hot-dog like sausage split in half and served with a tomato based sauce.  Jake and Jim got hamburgers and their entire burger was drowned in the special sauce.

 On reaching the waterfront we discovered lots more oceanfront restaurants and a lot of people out and about. The beachfront was very foggy once again.  We admired the red and green colors of the invasive ice plant on the dunes.  We also passed an area where a lot of seaweed had been collected in large piles and was drying under plastic tarps.  In one yard, someone was turning the seaweed by hand. I think it is used for fertilizer. The walk alternated between paved sidewalks and some boardwalks.  

Seaweed harvesting

Horned poppy along the boardwalk

One of several decorated carts in Povoa de Varzim

At about 7 miles, we voted on whether to walk the remaining 4 miles or call an Uber.  It was a tie vote, but calling an Uber won.  Within 4 minutes our driver arrived and 15 minutes later we were in Apulia at Sisu Guest House.  The driver was very lively and so enthusiastic when he found out I spoke some Portuguese and had studied in Brazil.  He had lived in Santarem, Brazil working for a Portuguese company for almost 20 years.  He had also worked in Germany a long time and spoke good German.

After checking in and resting, Jake and I took a short stroll down the beach to see more windmills.  Apparently there used to be many more along the coast and I think they were used for grinding grains.  Just inland are many small farms and greenhouses growing all sorts of vegetables and corn.

Windmills in Apulia

We had dinner at one of the restaurants along the beach, but sat inside because of the cold fog.  Berbigao Apulia served very good seafood.  Jake and I shared the seafood and rice for two with little clams, shrimp, mussels, giant shrimp, and half of a small lobster.  It had a nice tomato-based herby broth.  The staff were mostly Brazilians and very nice.  Jim and Linda had fried calamari and grilled shrimp skewers.

Day 3

The sun was visible today!  The anticipated rain only materialized briefly overnight and we look forward to a nice hike inland from Apulia to Esposende.  The hike was pretty short, a little over 4 miles.  It passed by small farms growing a wide variety of vegetables both outdoors and in hoop houses.  There was a short section of woods with a mix of pines, oaks, and Eucalyptus just before reaching Fao.  That section had some interesting Camino-related informal art installations

Sunset in Esposende

A cemetery along the Caminho

Part of the route to Esposende

Fao is known for a pastry called the Clarinha.  It looks like a small fried empanada with very crispy pastry crust coated in powdered sugar and is filled with a sweet filling made from spaghetti squash.  We stopped at a lovely little cafe that specializes in clarinhas.  From Fao you walk on a long bridge over the Cavado River into Esposende.  We walked to the north end of town to our hotel, the Suave Mar.  

The Suave Mar is a large hotel just across the street from the river.  We had a late lunch at the bar by the pool.  The passion fruit lemonade was excellent!  In the afternoon we walked into more of the downtown area to do laundry.  Once we figured out how to get the washer going we walked around town looking for postcards, an increasingly scarce item!  No stamps were available, so I’ll have to look for some in another town.  Dinner was fairly forgettable at a riverfront restaurant, although we were introduced to lupines or lupins, lupine beans, a common Portuguese bar snack.  Wild lupine seeds are poisonous, but apparently these are either a species or cultivar called sweet lupines that contain few alkaloids and are in fact quite nutritious.  

Day 4

In a light rain, we walked a short way up the coast past a 16th century stone fort and then turned inland for the rest of the 6+ mile hike from Esposende to Castelo do Neiva. Today’s hike started mostly on stone roads through small towns. The towns are on a hillside above the sea with an escarpment to the east.  It was fun to peak into gardens and see the mix of old and modern architecture.  Around 11:30 we saw a sign for pastry at Gato Galoso (Cat with a sweet tooth) and had to stop.  They had excellent pastries and coffee and we missed the biggest downpour of the day.  Before reaching the river Neiva, there’s a stretch of forest, one of the only trail sections not on a road!  It has a mix of native and non-native species.  

Crossing the river Neiva

A little art/shrine along the path

Sao Tiago

Tonight we are in the little town of Castelo do Neiva at one of the most beautiful hotels I’ve ever stayed at, Quinta do Monteverde.  The property has been owned by the same family since the 1500s.  The current owner converted it to a hotel in 2000.  It is surrounded  by little orchards of olives, fruit trees, walnuts, and arbors of  grapes and kiwis. The main house is filled with antiques.  We were asked to put little booties over our hiking shoes before walking into the house given the rain.  Fortunately the rain stopped a little earlier and we enjoyed exploring the grounds.

Grape arbor in front of the breakfast building

The main house

Day 5

Breakfast wasn’t served until 9am, but was delicious with homemade jams and an apple tart.  As it was raining, we didn’t mind heading out a little late.  We walked back uphill to rejoin the Camino.  From Castelo do Nieve it heads through a patchwork of small towns and bits of forest.  We stopped for coffee at one small town cafe and on the way out met three 20 something Italian men who decided we looked friendly and up for a chat.  We chatted with the three of them all the way to the next little town.  They had been friends since a young age and met in Scouts. They all live in Rome and are studying or are hoping to study at University.  Apparently university spots are hard to obtain.  One is studying law, one hopes to study medicine, and a third topic.  They had lots of questions about how people think in the US about politics, guns, etc.  We hope we set them straight on some common misconceptions.  This was their first Camino and they had been a little disappointed that more people wouldn’t chat with them I think.

Building in Viana do Castelo

A bit of woods

Wet trail

Before reaching Viana do Castelo the trail leads through a half cleared industrial zone.  We were happy to finally see a restaurant offering a pilgrim menu.  As it was around 2pm by then all they had left was the menu of Cozida Portuguesa, a slow cooked dish of meats, beans and greens served with rice.  It was delicious despite rather odd looking bits of meat.  It fortified us for the walk across the Eiffel bridge over the Limia River estuary, a long and very windy walk on a narrow sidewalk right next to the cars.  We found Hotel Laranjeira right off the main square, a basic but clean hotel.  

Jake and I took a late afternoon stroll around the still windy and wet town to find a razor for Jake and postcards and stamps for me.  After trying 2 other places that turned out to be closed, we had a nice dinner at Viana do Mar restaurant with pureed vegetable soup and grilled squid.  It took some back and forth with the staff to discover that, Estilo Viana do Mar on the menu just meant, grilled with a side of fries!

Celebrating the end of our Caminho hike