Camino Portugues Log

In September 2016, I decided to walk the Camino Portugues.  I started in Porto, Portugal and walked a total of 300 kilometers (186 statute miles) to Santiago over a 12 day period.  In May 2017, I started in Lisbon and walked over 650 kilometers (405 statute miles) over a 27 day period It was a  great experience, and I dreamed about the Camino every night for 6 weeks afterwards.  I took that as a sign that more Camino was in order.

My son Paul and I began a 6-week training program of twice weekly hikes, starting at 16 km (10 miles) to 32 km (20 miles) in length.  We had assumed that our shoes would be broken in and blisters sorted by the end of training.  That was not the case - real Camino walking on a wider variety of surfaces, including cobblestones and Roman roads, generated blisters in new places.

We planned for the trip using The Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino Portugues by John Brierley (8th edition, 2016).  While it provides invaluable information, the directions are not always crystal clear no matter which version of English you speak or understand.  We used the traditional route between Lisbon and Porto, and the coastal route north of Porto.  The coastal route hugs the Atlantic coast and Vigo Bay until merging with the traditional Portuguese route near Redondela, Spain.  

We both had Google Fi smartphones, so weren't worried about phone and web connectivity.  I used the Geo Tracker (geo-tracker.org) application as we walked and to generate the map/track photos on these web pages.  I found the 30-second update mode to be a bit unreliable; the 1-second mode provided more accurate and complete tracks.

Our daily itinerary and log is summarized in the following table: