Vila Cha >Sao Pedro de Rates

Holly Molly - if I never see another cobblestone I’ll live a happy live.
Last night at cafe Sandra they had a Rock concert starting at 10 PM - somehow we managed to get some sleep - eventually.

This morning we crossed over from the camino Costa to the camino central for what was supposed to be a 13 mile walk to São Pedro de Rates. 15 miles later, after miles and miles of cobblestones, we finally got to Casa Anabela. According to many blogs, there are 3 ways to do that, but 2 of the ways are somewhat defunct, but either way the markings are almost non existent.
So when they tell you the cobblestones are awful believe them and when they say the markers are almost non existent believe that too. We walked for the first 9 miles out of Vila de Conde with maybe 2 markers. Somehow we made it and in the last 3 miles we may have seen 4 dozen markers. Whatever - I’m in my hotel room resting up a bit with a beer in my hand 😀
The scenery was just ok - looking forward to tomorrow - only a 10 mile day - supposedly….

Also, don’t plan to eat much walking on a Sunday in Portugal. Other than a couple of small grocery stores, everything was closed. Managed to get some fruit and a mandatory pastel de nata - so all is well.

We ended the day with a very nice pilgrims dinner of soup, vegetable curry with rice, Santiago torte and vino tinto. Then an after dinner walk through the historic town of Rates - now all is even better ❤️Read more