Capela de Peregrina. Chapel of the Pilgrims. Pontevedra, Spain.

On the morning of day nine, while walking the Camino Portuguese, we set out from Arcade. Our next scheduled stop was Pontevedra, just 7.5 miles (12 kms) away. No big deal, right?

I’m not one to have a “bucket list” nor do I proclaim New Year’s resolutions. I’m finding the older more experienced I get the less I worry about long-term planning, or pretty much making any plans at all.  Perhaps it has something to do with retirement and the level of flexibility and freedom it offers.  Or, maybe, it’s just because I’ve stopped worrying about what might happen, opting instead to live in the here and now.

When the calendar page turns to the first official day of summer, I begin counting the days until the first official day of fall, as if I can hurry along the seasonal changes.  I can appreciate the beauty of summer with green grass, flower blossoms and wearing flip flops, but I am not a fan of heat and humidity.  Humidity tends to suck the life out of me so when the air cools in the fall, I feel as if I can breathe again.  There are those who profess they love the fall season but worry that winter is just around the corner.  I’ll take winter too.  One can layer on the clothing to stay warm, but only so much can be taken off to stay cool in the summer heat. You know what I mean?

I had been saying from day one that when we reached Padron, Spain, I wanted to sit down and relax with a pitcher of Sangria and a plate of roasted Padron peppers.  I got the Sangria, but not the peppers.

Camino PortugueseI’m not sure if it was the alarm chirping or the splattering of the rain pelting our hotel room window that awakened us to day nine, but either way both of us thought the same thing at the same moment.  OMG!  It’s still raining!

Before leaving Porto we bought two travel umbrellas for three euros each.  It would prove to be the best six euros we spent while walking the Camino Portuguese.  As I mentioned in our last post we made it to Valenca before the rain rolled in and several hours later when it did, it did so with a vengeance.  Dressed in full rain gear and with umbrellas open, we started day seven walking in the rain and crossing the Minho River to Tui, Spain.

According to our Portugal Green Walks road book, our walk from Ponte de Lima to Cossourado would prove to be the most challenging.  At just shy of 14 miles it wasn’t our longest walk on the Camino Portuguese but it was indeed a strenuous and somewhat relentless day.  It was also the day I received the first of two backhanded compliments and it was the day we were forced to remember why it’s so important to live the life you want to live.

The oldest city in Portugal, Ponte de Lima, is named after the medieval bridge that crosses the Lima River.  I swear any time a city has a river that flows through the city center you know it’s going to be a special place and Ponte de Lima did not disappoint.  What is it about a river anyway? As it turned out, the city proved to be a welcome respite while walking the Camino Portuguese.

When taking on a long walk, such as the Camino Portuguese, one of the things you quickly learn is how fast the days begin to blend together.  It’s something we learned while walking the Camino Francis.  If we didn’t have this blog of ours, we’d have a heck of a time remembering dates and places.  With that in mind, and because I knew I wouldn’t be writing in real time while walking the Camino Portuguese, we took a series of notes each night.  And, thanks to the cloud, all of our hundreds of photos are dated.  Between our notes and photos, I can tell the tale of each day.

Walking the Camino – whichever route chosen – is never meant to be easy.  But, in comparison to our Camino Francis walk in 2015, when we walked 350 miles across Spain, our twelve days walking the Camino Portuguese were infinitely easier.  I suppose it was inevitable that we would, occasionally while walking, compare our two Camino treks.