A soggy day in the Minho

Up late and hoping that breakfast would be quiet. Nobody there when we arrived, although we were joined by the count later. He told us that there would be 17 Italians arriving later and he hoped we wouldn't mind if we had bacalhau for dinner again!

After breakfast we decided that despite the grim weather forecast we would do the walk suggested in the Inntravel notes. We had barely got started when it transpired that a whole new terrace of vines had Ben planted right across the route. We tried various paths but couldn't find a way through. We retraced our steps back to the road and wandered along trying to work out where the path would have taken us. We had been walking for around twenty minutes when we met a grumpy dog guarding the road. Fortunately after a retreat and stop to consult the map the dog trotted off into the fields. We kept on plodding and then the rain poured down...
I was beginning to lose heart but we kept going and. Google maps gave us enough of a position that we could compare with the map so we felt optimistic we might reach a recognisable point. Finally after an hour - hour&half we finally picked up a path that seemed to tally with the route notes. The path was cobbled, leading up through eucalyptus woods and the hill was strewn with large boulders. The rain poured intermittently but sometimes we got a glimpse of the Lima valley and the bridges at Ponte de Lima. Eventually we reached a saddle where if the cloud wasn't so low we'd have been able to see across two valleys. Ho hum. The path started to descend and we sustained ourselves with a sandwich left from yesterday's picnic before tramping on. The path showed evidence of recent flood damage and was very rough at points, there was also a fallen tree. Eventually we came back to paved roads past old houses and an old stone laundry before bring us back to Paco de Calheiros.Read more