The Stone Site

Monday 22 of July and we have had a day off. What’s the best you can do then? Go shopping in a clean, cool supermarket without smelling too much Camino. So nice! Of course you can’t buy anything unless you can eat it otherwise you have to carry it with you … and every gram is a pain to avoid!

And we drank the wine we bought for 1.1€. Now I fully understand the meaning with the expression; you get what you pay for! In our case we got both wine and vinegar, mostly vinegar I may say!

Visiting the Cathedral here in Tui we learned what will happen to us sinners, drinking wine and not walking! It seems to be almost as hot as the place where we are sleeping!

Lessons learned today? Well, caught my wife in deep praying – smart move as long as no one sits in front of you. Well that’s as much as I learned today even my brain and mind seem to have a day off (or two).

It’s Sunday the 21th of July and we have finally reached Spain!! How do we now that; shops are closed on Sundays, prices are higher and Restaurants opens first at midnight 😉 Well it’s not that bad but Spain is different and it’s of course the land of KAS and full of fine jamon – I like!!! So we are happy! And for Portugués people; Lots of Candy!

There is a quite small ordinary grocery shop open on Sundays – and there were millions of people from Portugal there buying Candy in huge sacks. At least 20 big busses where parked outside and everyone bought tons of candy! Very fun and interesting! For an old swede it really felt like when the Tax-free shops on the Finish-Ferris opened. You could see and feel the joy in the eyes of the Portugués; Candy, Super Saving, Candy, Buy, Buy! As swede I skipped the Candy and bought a good bottle of wine for only 1.1€, well the “goodiest” was perhaps the price!

The walking to Tui was fine, straightforward, not much uphill, many fine places to stop for water and coffee…and very good info about the distance. Not to mention cows, the one above was escorting us a god bit along the Camino!

We haven’t seen so much if Tui. Hope we will discover more, cause we are staying a day extra here!

Saturday 20 of July. This part of the Camino Portugués is, according to books, the most uphill part. And it’s very true. Therefore an early start in the morning is a must to avoid most of the heat. The challenge is that no coffee shops are open!

The only ones awake are the dogs and cats. But this morning we caught some cats having a good sleep; a big yawn!

So after about 7-8 km (around 2 hours), our mountain climbing started. It’s hard to describe and hard to illustrate with a photo but it was quite a steep walking.

This day we where very lucky finding a fine mobile bar in the mountains. Clean and good food! So lucky!

Then quite soon after the climb up we climbed down and found our place to stay. And this place had a very nice balcony

Quite a rural area, isn’t it? But the landlady was very, very helpful and drove us back and forth to a local supermarket so we got something to drink and eat for lunch. Perhaps the word supermarket is a bit ambitious, but at least it had the essential things. And it was the same procedure for dinner. We are quite “early eaters” so in the beginning we where quite alone!

Then in the evening having a last glass enjoying the view from our room!

Summarising the day, we are very grateful to our landlady and her helping us getting back and forth to the Village. Without her it would have been quite horrible. Again the Camino has showed how important it is to think outside your own bubble and how much just a little help could affect life!

I’m so lost regarding days nowadays, but it’s Friday 19 of July?! The nature is changing quite much and there is a sort of German Alps-feeling when walking, and there is a lot of wine stocks!

The walking is a quite nice, flat and quite many small bars where you can stop and say hello to the other Camino walkers.

Ponte de Lima looks like a very nice place. Lots of open space and nice houses – however quite hot (as usual). You quickly learn how to stick to the shadow places.

And of course many, many nice statues. Don’t know what has happened, besides my interest for old houses I’m getting quite fascinated about statues. They are all around us and I need to stop and look at every one of them!!!

And there are plenty of them …

Well hopefully the sun will go down and we can get out and learn about the town! There should be some more statues to explore!

Thursday the 18th, a short walk, slightly uphill but otherwise quite easy.

We have learned the lesson, getting up early, a short walk and you don’t end up completely dead in the afternoon! Walking the Camino Central again we were afraid of being alone again – but that’s absolutely not an issue. There are several pilgrims out walking.

Booking places to stay in advance is a gamble. Sometimes your are lucky, sometimes not. Today we have been lucky. A nice ally;

And a house of our own.

With a grand kitchen

It feels like a summer holiday day in the countryside, visiting some distant relatives! A couple of days in Porto our doorstep was more or less the street and here it’s a great distance to the road! What a difference! And this is the Camino at its best, sometimes water & food – sometimes not! Whatever happens you should not fight back and be upset – just go with the flow an enjoy life and what is provided for you. It’s absolutely not easy but it’s much better than the opposite!