A few times through the night I woke to the sound of the leaky gutter outside my window as heavy showers moved through. At least the rain stopped the loud band playing outside my window.

Yesterday I had fried sardines for lunch and the woman at the restaurant assured me that they were fresh. This morning’s headline – “Sardine fishing is authorised from today” hmmm illegal? Frozen?

I wound my way up through the Porto streets as rain showers continued.

The streets of Porto.

The walk through the suburbs of Porto seemed endless. After two hours and 10km I was finally leaving the city.

Finally I was starting to see some countryside and villages.

The most exciting part of the day, so far at least, was crossing a very busy road with fast traffic and having to climb a barrier that stops the cars crashing into each other .

The hand written sign says ‘ Cuidado Peregrino’ or ‘take care pilgrim”. They’re not kidding .

Most of today’s walk was on either bitumen or long stretches of cobblestone which is quite hard on the feet.

Painful cobblestones.
Two churches separated by barely a kilometre.
An old mill.

After a pretty solid 5 1/2 hours walking covering 27km, I arrived at the Monastery of Vairão which was established about 1,000 years ago. It now belongs to the local council and a floor has been converted into a albergue.

I was wondering what these low basins were for, and I used one to do my washing. Later, I saw two Portuguese pilgrims soaking their feet in them.

The sun has come out and the clothes are drying.

I paid a visit to the old attached cemetery.

Anyone home?

My Relive video for today .

https://www.relive.com/view/vmqX3jG9BL6