It was an amazing day along the ocean. We saw hundreds of pilgrims and had great weather. Perfect.

To avoid urban walking we took the metro in the morning and cut about 6 miles off the walk. Even so our walk was 14 miles.

About 70% of today’s walk was on boardwalks, about 10% on the beach and the rest on streets. It was all great. Very different than any stage so far.

We finished the day at a little restaurant which ended up being fantastic. We had several tasty dishes that we shared . What a fun and pleasant surprise.

The Pilgrims

I saw more pilgrims today than I saw in my first 20 days combined.

Right when we started walking, I bumped into Christine (Berlin). I met her a week or so ago. We walked together for about 45 minutes before separating. I won’t see her again since we’re going different routes. When we said goodbye she said “I’ll keep a piece of you in my heart.” Wow. Touching. The Camino brings people together so quickly.

Throughout the day I walked with several different people. Everyone was excited to be on the Camino. (For the vast majority of people, this was their first day walking.)

The Routes

From Porto there are several different routes one can take to Santiago. The two most popular are the “Coastal” and the “Central.”

Today we were on the Coastal route. Many of the stages on the Coastal route are just like today… oceanside boardwalks and beach resort towns.

The Central route is the more traditional route and goes through some older villages and towns.

Our plan is to do one day on the Coastal then cut over to the Central. As we near Santiago, we’ll leave the Central route and join a third route called the “Spiritual.”

I’m not sure, but I think they’ll be fewer pilgrims on the Central route, but we’ll see. The Coastal route would have been nice, but 10 days of coastal walking may have gotten a little monotonous. Either way, we got to experience some of it today which was great.