Oliveira de Azeméis Municipality

Before we talk about today, let us tell you about last night. Casa Catolica is the best pilgrim experience!!. Paulo welcomed us, showed us the kitchen with fresh drinks and snacks, where to do laundry and hang in the garden, our room, the hammocks, and invited us to make ourselves at home. Oh yeah, and dinner was at 7:30. Casa Catolica is between towns so there is no where to go to eat or to shop for groceries. We showered and then socialized with the other pilgrims.

We met a wonderful couple, Eddie and Elizabeth from Cleveland, Ohio and Fia (Fiona) from Ireland. Fia is only 28 years old and travels for a living. She goes somewhere and works, saves money, and then travels somewhere new. She spent the last two Christmas seasons in Lapland, Finland as an elf in the magical ice castle. On the Camino she spends some nights sleeping in her hammock in the woods or behind an abandoned building. She thinks she wants to settle down and she is using the Camino to figure out what she wants to do. She has been in 27 countries.

Paulo runs the Alberque. He definitely has a gift for hospitality. He knew everyone staying there by name and would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it. He usually has about 8 pilgrims a night, but tonight, because of the Fatima pilgrimage, there were 22 pilgrims there last night. He made room for as many as possible, putting mattresses on the floor. He even made sure that Jeff and I had beds and not bunk beds or on the floor, because we were older! There were 25 people for dinner from at least 5 different countries. What an experience! We had meat, vegetables, potatoes, eggs, bread, olives, wine, dessert, and an homemade orange after-dinner liquor. And all for a donation. It was a lot of fun. If you ever want a Camino experience without the walking, volunteer at an Alberque like this one!

Today was what is becoming a usual day. A lot of street walking, mostly through suburbs, though we did walk on some authentic roman roads from at least the 15th centuries. We did 17.1 miles today and a lot of very tall hills. It was in the low 70's and there was a nice breeze. We are staying at a hotel as there are few accommodations between here and Porto.

We had a fantastic seafood dinner for two, a bottle of wine, appetizers, and after dinner drink for about $55 .

Many pilgrims take a taxi from here to Porto because tomorrow involves a lot of main road walking. We intend to walk it all but we reserve the right to take a cab if the road conditions are not safe.Read more