The forecast for today was for quite heavy rain all day. I wasn’t looking forward to this as it was a reasonably long walk of 30km.

When I left, it was misty but not raining. The rain held off until late morning.

I love old bridges and I crossed three medieval ones today. These would all have been important river crossing points for pilgrims heading to Santiago.

The 14th century bridge at Barcelos
São Miguel de Arcos bridge.
The beautiful bridge crossing the Ave River.

Many more pilgrims start from Porto than from Lisbon and now instead of perhaps a few others, I’m seeing many through the day. Something of the camaraderie has disappeared.

After 400 kilometres or so, today I saw the first sign showing how many kilometres there were to go.

I passed through some pretty countryside.

All the vines around here are trellised.

I had seen that there was a festival on in my destination town this weekend but I didn’t understand what it was about. Luckily I had booked as the town’s accommodation is full up.

I was so lucky that the procession passed right past my hostel!

It’s the annual Festa das Cruzes or Festival of the Crosses. The procession includes crosses from hundreds of churches in the district .

After the procession, all the heavy floats are placed in the church.

And of course there’s a big fair.

My Relive video for today ….

https://www.relive.com/view/vXOnnrjGo5O