Camino de Santiago

If you'd asked me what I was hoping to get out of dinner, I'd have described exactly what happened - an enormous amount of very good fish in a restaurant run continuously by two guys since 1970 which has a TRAIN in the logo, and in which they're still storming around in their wool vests.

I'd have said I hope it's filled with their Portugese Martin Scorsese lookalike mates, and women that have been there since day dot, still loyal to their Farrah Fawcett blowouts, giving each other shit and ruffling kids hair as they run past.

By the end of it I'd crinkled my eyes at half the restaurant, got a pastry and a glass of port on the house, and nodded goodbye to a few tables on my way out. I walked three minutes home, flopped down, poured a tiny glass of port, then slipped between the cool sheets of a bed wider than I am tall.

Perfect. Day.Leia mais

The crisp linen bewitched me and for a brief moment I considered bunking off the breakfast, served 8 to 10am in a cafe up the road, in order to continue my clockwork exploration of sleeping positions (that's how I know it's wider than I am tall).

Shaking off this siren song, I got up there at 9.30, waved past some disappointed visitors into the 'closed' cafe upon flashing my ticket with that most wonderful of phrases "for you, it's open". I proceeded to have, rivaled by Braga alone, one of the best breakfasts in both food and service of the trip. I took the pastel de nata and a slab of fruit bread for walking snacks, and rolled back to bed until check out at 12.

When I did, the host and I discussed my plans to go to Pena Palace, the gardens only, and she told me her favourite spot in the 500 acres - an area the queen liked so much she had a throne carved into the rock so she could admire the view in style. It's hard to find, she warned, but if I did I was to show her the photos please.

It wasn't bad walking on the roads yesterday but when I heard that there were hiking trails, if rather half-heartedly signed, I was determined to use them. It didn't inspire much confidence at the start but it was in the right general direction and incline (my wayfinding criteria for the remainder of the day it would turn out) so I stuck with it and it really paid off.

I popped out onto the road with just a few switch backs to go, and it was hellish traffic so I was very pleased to have avoided that.Leia mais