Portugal
4 comments February 16th, 2005
We walked across a bridge, and here we were: Portugal. The bizarre thing was, on the Spanish side, there was nothing but a rusty, cracked old sign to indicate that we were about to enter a 
new country, whilst the "Espana" sign was a flash, new, bright blue thing. Once we crossed the bridge, of course, it was the exact opposite. Interesting neighbours, then. 
Despite the fact that we have been through the change of country thing a couple of times now, it is still an odd sensation to wake up one morning, in a place where everyone speaks one language, and by lunchtime, have walked into another country with an entirely different language and culture. Bizarre, but rather fabulous.
At the risk of sounding horrendously cheesy, the Camino Portuguese really could be marketed as “the friendly trail”. I guess the Camino Frances, which we followed to Santiago, is so over subscribed these days that pilgrims are just a part of the landscape, a permanent passing parade, and despite the odd “hola”, are generally ignored. It couldn’t be more different along this route.
All through the Galician section, and now into Portugal, not only is the Way itself absolutely 
stunning, but the locals are incredibly friendly. If it looks like we are going the wrong way – which, let’s face it, happens on a daily basis – they stop whatever work they are doing and yell out to us, waving wildly, and pointing in the right direction. After we have stumbled around and finally found it, we glance back to shout our thanks, and get a big clap and wave in return. Despite our utter lack of Portuguese we are always greeted with a warm smile and an eagerness to help. Whether this marked difference in attitude toward pilgrims is due to the fact that this route is less often used, or just one individual’s perception, I am not sure. But we are loving it.
The Way itself is truly beautiful. It is strangely reminiscent of Australia very often, as it winds through great forests of eucalypt and wattle trees, and amongst bracken and ferns. 
There are 
countless old Roman bridges over pretty streams, and some really enormous
medieval bridges, like this one.
Every day the weather has been just amazing. Blue skies, bright sunshine, and a light breeze; absolutely perfect walking weather. Through Galicia we were still able to stay in Pilgrims’ accommodation. The albergues along that part of the route are great – most of them are converted old stone buildings with excellent facilities. Now that we are in Portugal the albergues have stopped. But we have discovered that quite often pilgrims are allowed to sleep in the “Bombeiros”, or fire stations, which is pretty cool, and there are also quite a few youth hostels. So we are dodging the tent for a little while yet (luckily, as although the days are warm, the nights are still arctic).
Lulled into a blissful state of wellbeing by all this beauty and good fortune, we toddled off to dinner the first few nights in a great state of expectation. But after extensive sampling, we have one, rather huge, problem:
The wine.
Oh, dear.
Now, I am not the fussiest of souls when it comes to vino. In actual fact, one could say I am remarkably easily pleased; as long as it is wet and alcoholic, I am generally happy. But, believe it or not, I have finally discovered that I actually do have standards. And, tragically – and I do not use that word lightly – I truly can’t drink the Portuguese red stuff. We are talking severely, monstrously terrible, here. Think petrol flavoured Ribena and you pretty much have a handle on it. We have tried; sweet Lord knows, we have tried. At least five different vino de la casa’s. But to no avail. It really is undrinkable. We notice that even the locals don’t order it; they all drink Spanish bottled stuff. So it isn’t just us.
(view of Portugal from Tui in Spain)
Meanwhile, the food is fine, and the servings are huge, although unlike in Spain, it is usually just the one course as averse to three. Not that it matters. I struggle to get through the one. I am holding out a tenuous, glimmer of hope that out on the coast where seafood is everywhere the wine might somehow do a dramatic lift…oh please…it’s going to be a long dry spell out there in the desert, we need to make the most of alcoholic civilisation while we still can!
All is well once more with our packs. The muscles have forgiven us for our long (and never, I swear, to be repeated) period of indolence, and we are back to walking normal distances after a bit of a slow start. It is still difficult to follow the waymarks sometimes. We go for days without any trouble, and then suddenly lose the way completely, and spend hours navigating by compass – not difficult, obviously, when one just has to go South, but pretty annoying. I have to confess that we are generally in the middle of some highly engrossing conversation when we discover we have lost it. You know, really important stuff, like what exactly it was that George said to Jerry in some ancient episode of Seinfeld. Obviously we are using this time on the trek to contemplate loads of high minded philosophical stuff.
So now we are nearly in Porto, where we are supposed to meeting some friends, although we are not too sure where or when at this stage, so we may or may not stop. In the meantime I plan on doing an in depth study of the alcohol situation, the results of which I shall obviously share. There has to be something drinkable around here somewhere. If not, at least we know what we can run the camping stove on…