Whew! Today was long, longer than expected due to a somewhat unexpected deviation from the route indicated on my fully Camino-ed maps.me. Clearly intended to keep us away from trunk roads it took us some 2km away from the official central route before returning us via a couple of unmarked paths.

The weather was absolutely glorious, cool and sunny at the start, hot and sunny at the end. Barcelos is a surprisingly attractive city, not immediately apparent from the route in.

We left our hostel around 8 o’clock this morning having been persuaded to hang around for breakfast which though welcome, delayed us somewhat.

The route out of the city took us quickly through a pleasant shopping street and out into a wide, open area with buildings covered in the now familiar tiles so common here.

Short;y after leaving the city we came across this small group of cows, some 5 feet or so above the road.

It reminded me of an incident that occurred some years ago near Port Talbot when one member of a herd of cows accidentally fell from a similar height onto a car passing on the road underneath, much to the chagrin of the driver who promptly expired. Not an ideal way to meet Peter at the pearly gates. ‘How did you die?’, ‘Hit by falling cow, mate’.

Today held little of dramatic interest. The countryside we passed through was lovely,

lots of trees,

chickens with extra scrawny necks,

a friendly horse,

some goats,

and sheep.

We came across some chaps quietly laying out a new cobblestone road. Painstaking work, but good for at least the next 200 years.

We seem to be entering an area suited to the growing of grapes and presumably the production of wine and as we walked we saw larger and larger plots of land given over to vines.

A somewhat limited landslide had clearly occurred some time previously and a chunk of land had dropped together with its resident tree onto the path.

The highlight of today’s walk was a small secluded valley filled with naturally growing Calla lilies. Seemingly the soil, light levels and access to water have conspired to produce a wonderful little haven of exquisite pleasure. I’m afraid that the pictures do it scant justice.

The final image is of the photograph hanging on the wall of the room where we ate dinner tonight. It’s of Ponte de Lima where I’m hoping to finally get breakfast of bacon and eggs early tomorrow morning.

We’d agreed with the young lady who runs the hotel that we’d eat at 7 o’clock but Tom unfortunately didn’t show up until 7:21 when the fish, chips and kale had cooled to a tepid luke-warm. It transpired that he’d spent the best part of 20 minutes in the elevator moving from floor 0 (his room level) to -1 (ground level and the focus of our dinner intentions) and returning to level 0 in the hope of finding us. Clearly convinced that level -1 could not conceivably be ground level he’d gone up and down repeatedly in the hope of an alternative outcome. (Sigh).

Buen Camino