Day 1: Porto to Vila do Conde

First walking day was a little tough. Started out from Porto Cathedral and took several miles and a couple of hours, winding through city streets before making it out to the coast to head north. There, we encountered throngs of people for the half marathon and volleyball tournament taking place. Very crowded!

Finally made it through, but being a Sunday, the boardwalk and beaches were still very busy. We walked 14 miles, and after realizing we had completely miss-calculated the distance to our endpoint for the day, we called a driver (Bolt is the app) and let them take us the final 7 miles to our hostle.

The beaches were gorgeous. At one point, there was a swimming pool built into the ocean! The beautiful lighthouse pictured is Farol da Boa Nova Lighthouse, near the outskirts of Porto.

We reached our hostel, cleaned up and had dinner at a great little neighborhood Gastropub, just around the block from us. The food was delicious and included a salad with greens and a combo of fruits and vegetables I'd never seen mixed all together before. Hooray for new things. 🙂Read more