Day 3 Cycling Coastal Camino

Today we are cycling another 50+ km from Viana do Castelo to Oia and our gel seats arrived - yaaay.
DESCRIPTION
Start the day towards the beachside town of Vila Praia de Ancora, cycling along the coast
to get there and avoiding the challenging climb where the official Camino route goes. Continue with a coastal cycle path
that connects you to Moledo, just before reaching the pretty town of Caminha at the mouth of the River Minho as you head more inland. There is a beautiful parish church
here, the clock tower and the decorative fountain in the charming square of Praca
Conselheiro Silva Torres. Here you have to take the scenic ferry and cross the River Minho, the natural border with Spain. Cycle
through the fishing town of A Guarda to follow the Camino along dirt tracks and tarmac roads to the village of Oia, where a 12th century monastery dominates this
small but attractive village. A small beach can also be found in front of this monastery.

We typically have the same breakfast each day and make a sandwich and take some fruit or yoghurt for lunch. We saw the couple who are following the same route as us with the same company and they are having trouble with the bike seats too and found yesterday very difficult.
We got ready to head out with our gel seats and the first sit felt much better🤗 Macs Adventure set our navigation for the Coastal Route so we apparently bypassed the mountain and looking at it, we were happy with that!! We had an absolutely gorgeous day on the coast. The weather was very warm today even with the ocean breeze. We saw a few round, stone structures right on the shore ( possibly decommissioned windmills?). We came across several Forts all from the same era, looking at their design and square shape. We passed the Praca Fort before stopping for coffee and a snack in Ancora, which also had a fort. Today we had such a fun mixture of paths. We were on smooth bike paths at the beginning and end of our ride today, we cycled on long sections of boardwalk, through some really nice forested paths, we had sections of cobblestone, but not as bad or as much as yesterday. We had one section of it today that we could not possibly ride up. The cobbles were massive. We had a section of zig zags through farmland with cobbles, then flat road. It reminded us of biking on the farmland towards Abbotsford. We had a beautiful ride right along the ocean on boardwalk which turned to deeper sand so had to walk our bikes through that and down some stairs. We had just a few small hills and a few sections we walkwd up because of the steep grade or ginormous cobbles. We had some really nice sections along old walls again, and lots of sections with old lower rock walls bordering properties. Many were breaking apart, but visible. We watched a man herd his sheep across the road, right near us. That was fun. We rode to the ferry which takes us into Spain, but it was broken down so the lady sent us about a km or so down the road to see Miguel and take his "fast" ride over. You can see by the photos that we were in for an adventure. Miguel was just fantastic and friendly. He had such an amazing personality and looked after us all, our bikes, and us "ladies" by giving us life jackets to sit on and also put on. He was constantly checking if we were okay. It was a very quick ride across to a beach. We got ourselves off the boat with Miguels helping hand. Though I tweaked my knee slightly which took me a bit to get warmed up again so it wasnt hurting while riding. Thankfully no worse. Miguel offloaded our bikes and we sat right there on the beach and enjoyed our lunch. We were off our route for navigation, so had to wind our way through the streets of Meledo then through A Guarda to get back on track. From here our ride was so beautiful along a nice gravel path past older homes and the old rock fences just off the ocean. We tried to stop for a beer in Oia, but we were a bit too late because the time here makes us an hour later yet. We are now 9 hours later than home. So our greeting to other pilgrims also changed once in Spain. We are now saying Buen Camino, not Bom Camino (Portugese). We saw lots of pilgrims walking again today.
We found our Hotel Glasgow right on the ocean with a beautiful pool( too cold to go in, unfortunately). We showered then I sat in the sun, did some stretching and journaled. Today was my favorite ride of our 3 so far with the landscape variety, gel seat and fewer cobbles!! We had a nice "Pilgrims" dinner option tonight. We had wine, sparkling water, Hake fish, pork, Russian salad ( similar to potato salad) and squid that was the best we have all tasted. We are all so tired today.Read more