Day 22 May 22nd Viana de Castelo Hotel Do Parque 10+miles

Here’s the update on our travels:

 had 5 weeks planned but left it pretty wide open as to how much walking and how exactly we would fill the time. 

We knew we wanted to walk the Portuguese Camino and trained like crazy before we left. 

Once here, in Lisbon we decided to jump up to Porto and walk that leg of it to Santiago. 

So that’s what we did. We walked 200 miles.  

And felt done. 

Surprisingly we walked that route in 13 days and had originally thought it would take 3 weeks. Crazy, yes? We walk slowly but steadily with long but good days. 

Upon arriving in Santiago, however, we were more exhausted than we realized. The endorphins and the everyday rhythm buoyed us up but we needed a rest.

So we stayed for 4 days.  

Then we realized that we had too much time left. So, following our intentions for this trip and honoring the "change of pace" theme, we contacted Alaska to see if we could come home earlier. Without going into the details, let’s just say that it worked! We will return 6 days early (on June 1st) and we have a better flight plan than originally- business class upgrade for no more $$!

So now we are just wandering, making our way to the Algarve (the Portuguese coast) to visit the town of Tavira where our friends are staying. (We were here in 1984 and loved it)! Those were the years of bikini and speedos and lots of beach going!! Things are different now!

We are still walking. Call it Camino Light. The Portuguese Camino has several routes. We walked the official route - the Central- and now we are exploring the Coastal a bit BUT without our backpacks which are staying in our hotel room!!  

The Portuguese also has a route from Lisbon to Porto that we originally thought we might want to walk but it is not well enough supported for our way of walking with services and accommodations every 12 or so miles the way we like it!! 

We feel good. Happy we could do this. Grateful for this window of time and health. Love the day to day rhythm of the walk and the people , the landscape, the chance to reset.

And we will be ready to come home to our own bed and eat at home and pick up our summer lives!  

We left Santiago at 5 in the morning and arrived here by train by 9am.  It’s a beautiful hotel for $45.00 per night including breakfast.  We may even use the swimming pool.  

The Camino walk along the ocean is lovely and the town as well.  Our walk along the ocean was shortened by some urgencies that I had that compelled us to get back on the main road to find the nearest cafe!  All was well. 

Had dinner at a French restaurant!  

We can tell we’re getting ready to come home when the notion of watching English speaking TV becomes appealing!  CNN here is a different experience - not all about you know who. 

We’re here for 2 nights with plenty of time to walk and explore another beautiful town.