Last segment in Portugal and just as lovely as the rest. Walking through rural villages, peering over walls to inspect blooming gardens, and the city of Valenca approaching.
After M had been saying “Only 30 minutes to go ” for an hour and a half, we decided to take a taxi to our hotel from the Cafe where we were stopped for an ice cream break. It was all the way across the city threading through the medieval gates in the city wall and would certainly have taken us at least an hour.
We stayed at one of the two hotels called Alojamento da Vila, this one with Golden added (Alogamento da Vila Golden). It was the only time our luggage went astray (we used Top Santiago (www.topsantiago.com) because we didn’t include the last word on the label; but as they are two medieval blocks away from each other, not a big problem!
This is a very nice hotel, excellent lounge area with free wine and snacks available as well as a good breakfast. I would stay here again even if not on a walking holiday. The city of Valenca is charming, worth a visit on its own. There is a cute dress shop just around the corner, several interesting craft stores, and a big public plaza with outdoor eateries.
Since our luggage is not here yet, I can’t take a shower (no clean clothes) or go for a walk (I have a small blister that needs treatment and I don’t want to put my boots back on). D has gone to see the city in her hiking gear while M and B go to retrieve our luggage.
Yes, we have been walking through vineyards and under shady grape trellises the past 2 days.
Beautiful views out over the vineyards of Galicia
This cross reassures us that we are on the Way. The path zig-zags down to the picturesque little church halfway down the hillside. At this point my toes are quite tired of being shoved into the front end of my hiking boots, so I delay to take a picture every chance I get. My super 5-toed sox did not get dry from last night’s washing and I had to wear my silk sock liners with wool sox dating back to my trek in Nepal fifteen years ago- so dated! D is heading down the path ahead.
Tomorrow I am going to lighten my pack by two punds by leaving my dop kit in my suitcase – M infected me with paranoia that the suitcases might get lost, but on today’s hike I begrudged every ounce. This was the steepest elevation over a boulder-strewn path – I was glad for my sticks but at some points I had to hand them to B and hug a tree to get around to the next portion. (The maintainers of the Way certainly do their best to maintain the authenticity of the experience!) At another point I tried to force myself up an unusually high step and with the pack on my back I almost overbalanced and fell backward. I was VERY careful after that, leaving me trailing behind the other three with younger bones or less fear of falling.
Below – our first view of Valenca in the distance – we have a lot of valley to traverse before we get there~
We had made sandwiches from the breakfast offerings, plus fruit, so even though we were only “30 minutes ” from where Michele wanted to stop for lunch we took advantage of a bench and some rocks and picnicked.
Further on we were delighted to find a little bit of California in Portugal – a drift of sunny California poppies!
Finally – arrival in Rubaies! Nice view out the window, two double beds with matelasse/embroidered coverlets, a shower with a tub so I can soak my weary feet (the blue nail is no worse)
We are to go down to meet B and M and share a glass of wine while we exchange photos – but since they have iPhones and D and I are of the Android persuasion I don’t expect much success.
We are to be picked up and transported to the best restaurant in town (probably the only restaurant in town) at 6:30 so I’ll have more to tell you when we return about 930 our time, 12:30 your time.
I slept wonderfully last night in Ponte de Lima – one melatonin + one ibuprofen for the aching quads and dorsal muscles did the trick.
Leaving Ponte de Lima was hard. We took our time in the morning, and I had a chance to wander a bit along the river and discover some additional history. It seems that a Roman Army was in pursuit of some fractious Iberians who fled across the river. “After them!” thundered the General, but the soldiers refused. They believed that the obstacle was the river Lethe, and that if the waters touched them, they would lose all their memories.
The General swam his horse to the other side and from there called to each soldier by name, proving his memory was intact. The episode is commemorated by some steel monuments somewhat reminiscent of the card-soldiers in “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” The platoon is on one side of the river, the General harangues them from the other side.
It seemed Ponte de Lima was sorry to see us go also. There were lots of signs to attract the attention of pilgrims as we crossed the Ponte de Lima for the last time.
tarted off the day ust packing up for the next leg . I must confess, by he end of the first day of hiking I was grateful for a cozy bed, a dark room, and ibuprofen . Our lodging for the night did not include breakfast so we moseyed on down the road to a local pub, where some of the other customers drove up on tractors.
This was a much shorter day, eased also by the wonderful five-toed hiking sox that had been given to me by DM, and were highly recommended by some pilgrims on Day 2 who sympathized with our developing blisters. The 5-toed sox keep the toes from rubbing against each other, and the toenails you forgot to clip from slicing the neighboring toe, so all you have to deal with is the friction between your foot and your boots. We were heartened also by the many encouraging signs and markers we encountered on the way, including this stalwart pilgrim.
Ponte Lima was one of several towns along the way where we agreed we should have allowed more time. Our first view of the medieval bridge, still used for pedestrians to walk across the bridge, was only a hint of the interesting streets, shops, and historical markers waiting for us to explore.
In addition to the attractions of the town, M and B have two friends who have established residence in Ponte de Lima, and of course we shared dinner with them. M had hoped they would invite us to their home, a stone cottage which they had been renovating for awhile, but apparently the home is located an impractical distance from the town center and construction was ongoing so instead we met in a local bar on the other side of the medieval bridge from our hotel. On the way home, we were entranced by the lights outlining many of the features of the town, its church, and its bridge.
At Porto, the Caminho starts in front of the cathedral, looking out over the city. Here is where you pick up your empty Camino passport – filled with stamps from businesses along the way it might earn you a certification as a true peregrina. The symbol on the pylon is the official stylized scallop shell logo of the Pilgrimage. The arrow, of course, points the route, and within the small oval is the number of kilometers you have between you and your goal in Santiago. From one of many vendors about the place, you can purchase an actual scallop shell to hang on your backpack to let everyone know you are on the Way.
Following the advice of a Caminho Whisperer whom Michele consulted, we are taking the train through the industrial outskirts of Porto, and beginning our walk in Barcelos, a charming town about fifty kilometers along the way.
We are staying just across the river from the medieval walls and chapel of Barcelos, at the Top ‘Otel. This is a modern, sleek, brightly colored inn, whose only defect is a lack of elevators to carry us to our rooms on the top floor.
Barcelos is famous for its roosters, based on a legendary appearance of Saint James in support of a pilgrim falsely accused of theft and sentenced to hang. A medieval cross within the castle grounds illustrates the miracle.
The condemned man cries out to his judge who is eating a dinner of roasted chicken “As sure as I am innocent, that cock will rise and crow if I am hanged!” To everyone’s shock, the roasted cockerel did rise and crow, the judge rushed to the gallows and found that the pilgrim, though hanging, was not strangled: Saint James had appeared and supported his feet.
The man was cut down, the judge apologized, and the rooster became the symbol not only of Barcelos, but also of Portugal.
When my long-time travel companion DM (see “Nepal” and “France” tagged entries) suggested we should do another walking trip together, I hit on doing at least part of the Portuguese Way of the pilgrimage to San Juan Compostelo’s cathedral in Santiago, Spain. My sister M and her husband B are permanent residents of Porto, Portugal, a popular starting point for the Portuguese Way, and they immediately signed on with enthusiasm.
The average age of the foursome is over 75, and all agreed that they felt no need to earn a Compostela – a certificate affirming that the pilgrim has walked at least one hundred kilometers along the Camino. We were inspired only by the desire to travel together in a way that would enable us to enjoy the countryside of Portugal and Spain on a path largely inaccessible to tour buses. We did enjoy getting validation stamps on our pilgrim’s credentiales, as the restaurants and auberges along the way vied to offer the most interesting stamps. But instead of tracking miles and steps, Michele consulted with experienced Camino walkers to identify the most interesting and most scenic stretches along the Portuguese Way, including one stretch on a boat up the Rio Ulla to Padron. The quartet began in Porto on May 18, and used trains, buses, and taxis as needed to finish their Camino in Santiago on May 30.
Rather than work with a tour group, M booked accommodation each night through Bookings.com. Accomodation varied from elegant hotels in Barcelos and Valenca to four twin beds in a single room in a tiny town between Padron and Santiago. M also arranged luggage transport from each accommodation, so the walkers had only to carry daily essentials (food, raingear, extra layers of warmth, and first aid materials) in our backpacks.
All four of us were fit, fairly experienced hikers, and well -equipped with hiking boots, walking sticks, comfortable backpacks, and broad-brimmed hats to fend off the Iberian sun. How well did that all work? Stay tuned for a day-by-day account!
I loved the freedom of riding a bicycle ever since I first learned to balance my balloon-tired Schwinn on the tar roads I grew up with. As a child I could ride as far as the neighborhoods that had pavement and sidewalks and could admire the columned porches and vast green lawns behind the fences. When I was 12, I won a three-speed lightweight bike in a contest. I was over the moon. That bike took me through college, getting me to class on time as I swooped past plodding pedestrians, until in my senior year I left it unlocked for just a few minutes and it was gone.
After I was married my husband and I treated each other to Raleigh three-speeds, as we had only one car. I would pedal across town to the home of a co-worker and we would carpool together; I drove the carpool on alternate weeks, while my husband would either bike or bus to his job.
Our children started them out with bike seats on the back of our bikes, then encouraged them to learn to ride themselves. Once they had mastered their bikes, we took them and the bikes to Yosemite, to San Francisco, to Monterey, and on every bike trail within thirty miles.
Years later. My husband had a fall a few years ago and his knees are going out, but I continued to ride my bicycle, against his advice, on local errands: to the library, to my hairdresser, to the blood bank. “What if you have a crash?” he would ask me. “People are going to read about it in the paper and say “What the heck is a woman that age doing on a bicycle anyway?”
“I’m careful, “ I said. “I’m not going to crash.” And I didn’t, exactly.
I hopped on my bike on a Saturday morning to pick up some bagels from the House of Bagels, about a fifteen-minute ride from my house. A lovely morning – just enough high clouds to keep cool, no traffic. I sailed along the main street on the way to the bagel shop, taking a few detours on loop streets to admire the jacaranda trees in bloom, check out the progress of the construction projects, see if there were any windfall fruits to be picked up. I zoomed into the parking lot by the bagel shop… and my brain froze.
I couldn’t remember how to dismount from the bike.
I had had a little trouble dismounting the last couple of times I had ridden; the most recent time I managed somehow to give my shin a good whack and had raised a faint blue bruise. But I had gotten off this bicycle hundreds of times. The act should have been deep in my muscle memory, something I did without thinking. Now I had to think. To dismount, I only had to do in reverse what I had so easily done getting on: lean on the left pedal, swing my leg up and over the seat and rear wheel, apply the brakes. I circled around the parking lot and tried again. No way. Nothing but icy fear of losing my balance, of falling.
There was a high curb with a railing not far from the bagel shop. I pulled up to that, stopped, and then managed to step up onto the curb, hold onto the railing and haul my leg over the cross bar. Shaken, I walked the bike across the lot to my usual lockup spot next to the bagel shop. “That was weird,” I thought. “That was really weird.”
I bought two bagels, swung onto my bike with no problem, rode home, rode up my driveway… and my brain froze again. I couldn’t do it. I could not swing myself off. My muscle memory had gone dead.
I braked and with some difficulty managed to get my leg over the crossbar without falling over. I trundled my bike into the garage and parked it next to my husband’s bike. which was covered in cobwebs. His tires were so flat the wheel rims touched the ground. I stood looking at it for a few moments.
Then I locked my bike up as usual, went into the house, and emailed the local Bicycle Exchange. I have two bikes to donate. Within two days the bicycles and all associated accessories were gone.
I know this was a good decision. I have several friends who have been injured severely when their bikes slipped out from under them. But I miss the freedom of riding my bike. I miss being able to stop and inspect changes in my neighbor’s gardens, to take short cuts through suburban bikeways, to not worry about parking. I’m envious of the people who are trying out the newly painted bike lanes on El Camino and El Monte. It’s no fun driving to my hairdresser. On Saturday morning my husband goes for the bagels now.
There’s an empty space in our garage. I expect it will gradually fill up with the things that go into garages. I hope the empty spaces in my mind will fill up too.
There’s a lot more to Columbia than the stretch from the Capitol down Main Street to the museum and library. For one thing, it is the home of the University of South Carolina, whose lovely campus is located on the other side of the Capitol from those attractions. The presence of a university almost guarantees a range of good cheap restaurants for feeding starving students escaping dorm food. We tried a couple:
Camon Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar on Assembly Street near the campus has Japanese sliding screens, woodcut prints, and unexpectedly excellent sushi. It was empty when we entered at 6PM, and when we ordered an Asahi beer and were told there was no liquor license, we thought we knew why. But by the time we left, well satisfied with our edamame, unagi roll and pork tonkatsu, the place was nearly full of local adults as well as students who were probably underage anyway.
Another night we went further down Main to the Green Olive, its inauspiciously plain exterior surrounded by cracked parking lots and state office buildings. But the interior was much more promising, with a number of comfortable booths and tables testifying to a significant number of expected customers. The server looked exotic enough to be Turkish, but when I asked she giggled and said “No, I’m half Chinese and half Peruvian.”
The presentation of the food made no attempt at artistic plating or frou-frou snips of parsely or fennel. The flavor though was delicious and the amount generous. Again, as we ate the booths began to fill with a diverse population of older adults as well as flannel-shirted twenty-somethings.
Our most successful lunch was at a deli near our hotel downtown. I didn’t expect much from the East Bay Deli, one of five locations in Columbia for a chain that originated up in Charlotte. We went there because it was close to our hotel, we were hungry, and we were with my in-laws and needed a place with a diverse enough menu to satisfy each of our tastes. And it was good. Just plain good. Good bread. Good meat. Real lettuce, not ribby romaine. Crispy fries. Enough food that my in-laws split a sandwich between them.
You won’t starve for lack of good food in Columbia
I was attending a Women’s Camp on the west side of the Rockies in Colorado. My sister-in-law was at the camp also, along with one of her besties. One evening one of the other campers (DH) drove me and my friend DB to dinner and a theatre in Grand Lake, while my SIL and her friend spent the day touring nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.
Dinner was lively, with sixteen campers chattering away, and afterward we hurried to get to the theatre as it was beginning to rain. I pulled out my phone to check the location of the theatre, and when we parked I hurried around to help DB extricate herself from the seat belt. Only after we were in the theatre and I reached to put my phone on silent mode did I realize that it was not in my purse where it belonged.
Had it fallen out in the car? Or in the parking lot where we had stopped? I rushed from the theatre – the car was locked, and there was no sign of my phone anywhere along the walkway to the theatre. I figured that best case, when the show was over I could ask DH to call my number; if the phone was in the car we would hear it, and if someone had picked it up maybe they might answer a call.
After the show I relayed my plan to DH, and she pulled out her phone. First thing she saw was an urgent message from my SIL: “Allyson’s lost phone was picked up by an Australian man named Barney. He and his friends are at the One Love Rum Kitchen and Bar for trivia night. If Allyson doesn’t get the message he will leave the phone with the bartender.”
Great! DH and I left DB to guard the car and hustled along to the One Love Rum Kitchen. We walked into the lively, well-lit pub and immediately a gentleman was waving my phone in our direction. ( Barney could not have looked more Australian if he had been sent from Central Casting.) Lots of excitement, thanks, hugs, and my phone was restored to me in perfect order (Nancy and Barney at left above). But how had the message reached DH’s phone?
Chain of circumstances:
I had not gotten around to putting a password to secure access to the phone. (Shame on me, but…)
When Barney and his friend Nancy opened the phone, they were able to see that I had recently called HOME.
But when Nancy called HOME, she caught my husband drowsing over a book. He did not understand what Nancy was saying and, thinking it was a prank call, hung up on her.
Undaunted, they went to the next call on the recent list, my younger brother C, who was trailer camping in Wyoming, but happily with decent Internet coverage.
C got the message, and fortunately remembered that our mutual SIL was in Colorado at the camp with me. But he didn’t have her phone number.
So C called my older brother D in Texas, who relayed the message to his wife, whose roommate happened to have the cell phone number for DH, who relayed it to me.
Happy Ending! thanks to the miracle of modern communication, and as always, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
One afternoon W needs to rest, so I take a walk down our hotel’s street. Bodega Avenue is sidewalk free and pot holed, lined with little bungalows with bright-colored but peeling paint and cheerful geraniums in containers. At the end of the road are three redwood posts blocking access to what is beyond. I step through – into another world.
Sidewalks. Gutters. New pavement. A green space to my left with a fountain burbling. And houses, all painted in placid neutral shades with gleaming white trim. At least half of the houses have the driveway blocked with big red fenders – to keep squatters out? Some of the houses are large, two stories with a deck looking out to the harbor. Some, to my surprise, are small attached cottages no bigger than our suite at the Harbor Bay Inn. A few seem inhabited; in one, a BBQ party is happening on the deck. It seems I’ve been transported to Suburbia, but no, it is the Harbor View development at Bodega Bay.
I go out the flag-bedecked front entrance to the development and make my perilous way along the sidewalk free, shoulder-free Highway 1.
W is still resting, and the fog has lifted completely, so I take the car down to Duran County Park, the long finger that curls across the south end of Bodaga Bay. There’s an entrance fee of $7, which takes my last folding money. I drive past a Bird Walk, a Day Use area, several Reservations Only campgrounds filled with tents and trailers, a Visitors Center, and a Coast Guard station, all the way to the tip of the finger, site of a Day Use parking lot and a fine view of the headlands we had been on in the morning.
The Visitor’s Center is closed, but there is an information sign posted nearby explaining what you can see from this point: Jetty, the coast guard station, Mt.Tamalpais in the distance on a clear day, Point Reyes in the near distance, and then to the east “South Harbor Bay” and “North Harbor Bay”. These are clearly seen and they are developments, which from this distance look very much like Harbor View. They encrust the hillsides south of Bodega Bay like barnacles. Who lives in these developments. Are they all second homes? How long will it be before their residents demand a Safeway instead of Diekmann’s Bay Store or the Pelican Point Grocery? How much longer than that before a Costco sets up in Valley Ford?
Better visit Bodega Bay quickly. Blink and it’s gone.
