Agucadoura to Marinhas 13.5 Miles
We were up and OUT by 8:30 (without breakfast). In search of coffee, we passed up the first one, hoping that the Nortada (from last night) might be open. No luck, so we headed down the Camino boardwalk. As we were just about to give up hope for coffee in Agucadoura, we saw a building advertising Heineken with an outdoor awning off the boardwalk. Sure enough, they were open with great cafe con leche, a chocolate eclair and a lemon-filled donut. Not the healthiest, but was perfect for this moment.
The Camino raised beach boardwalk is an amazing infrastructure that we have followed since Porto. It has followed the coastline and today took a turn inland where the agriculture flourished. The boardwalk passed through so much vegetation, gardens, green houses and even an impressive golf course.
The boardwalk suddenly ended, but the country gravel roads and cobblestone continued through fragrant eucalyptus groves and to our first town of Apulia. Although this small, rural town had no coffee, it had a fantastic church where many perigrinos met to get our credentials stamped.
We met people from around the world. Many were looking for food and coffee, but that search would go on until the next village. We were following either gravel or cobblestones through the countryside with ancient stone walls on both sides. Plus, the tranquility was amazing, yet there were pilgrims ahead and behind us. One group, we call the “Purple Pants Perigrinos” were three women with identical purple (more maroon but purple sounds better) pants. We had never seen anything like them and there were THREE!
Our next town of Fao surpassed expectations. The squares had beautiful buildings and the first bar/restaurant had really good coffee. Several peregrinos were having lunch. Leaving Fao, we crossed a long bridge over Rio Cavado. From the bridge, there was a great view back to Fao.
Our next town, Esposende, was our lunch spot. It is a large town with spectacular pedestrian streets, many squares and lots of shopping. Since we have been eating a “little less than healthy”, we had said we would look for salads. As we passed a sandwich board, advertising soups, salads and crepes, a young boy noticed our interest and pointed out C’est La Vie. It was a charming French bistro and we ordered two salads. They were so good and were presented so well that we called our server back to our table. We told her they looked too good to eat. She was mortified, until she realized we thought they were fantastic. Sometimes things do not translate!
Esposende was a really cool town that eventually brought us back to the coast with a St.
John fortress and a perfectly black & white tiled walkway (similar to the Azores).
Our B&B was somewhere between Esposende and Marinhas. Without wifi access, we realized that if you plug in a GPS map in wifi, it will sometimes take you there without wifi. We had access until we went in a church for a stamp. Whoops! Now we were walking on these tiny streets with no names we recognized. Luckily, there was a bar with two guys playing pool. One of them started to say where he thought it was, but happily, they had wifi and we were able to plug in the address and follow it the entire way. Turns out our B&B with a balcony and sea view is attached to a highway gas station! We had to walk along a busy highway for .35 miles. Yikes!
When we arrived, we could not have been more pleased with our accommodations and the sweet person at the front desk offered that she would call a restaurant for delivery to our room so that we would not have to deal with the highway again. Perfect solution. The rain started about 5:00 and wouldn’t end until after dark.
We ordered a prosciutto and mushroom pizza that was delivered at 7:00. The B&B hostess set plates and silverware out for us in the breakfast room - much better than having dinner in our room. We ate about half the pizza with a glass of wine, that we bought next door at the gas station. The other half went in the B&B’s fridge and would be either breakfast or lunch tomorrow.
Back to the room to put a near perfect day in the history books.
2025-02-09