Povoa de Varzim to Esposende

There was a big tour group from France at my hotel and they kindly let me enter the breakfast room first. They saw the backpack and knew I wanted to speed through breakfast and hit the trail before the heat of the day. After breakfast, I met up with Sue and Bob and we started walking northward along the beach.

The Senda Litoral and the Coastal routes merged in Povoa de Varzim, and continued together for a couple of miles, and took us a little inland behind a golf course and through farmland. We had a couple opportunities to talk to the golfers through a fence. Bob is a faster walker than Sue and I so he was about a half mile ahead of us when we hit the split in the two routes. Sue and I continued on the Senda Litoral, to get back to the cool, ocean breezes, but Bob ended up on the Coastal route. He walked through several quaint villages but missed the ocean breeze. On the other hand, Sue and I were cool but didn't have many villages to take a break. Each route has its benefits and disadvantages.

We finally met up in Fao and walked (crawled) the last few miles into Esposende. We ended up walking about 18 miles.Read more