Day 12 – Agueda to Albergaria – 19-May-2018

Another day of changed (slightly altered) plans. We had originally planned to walk to a place called Albergaría, which was a mere 16kms from where we had stayed at Agueda. However, one of the ladies we had met (Eloisa) said she had found this really gorgeous albergue a few kilometers further down the road and suggested we should do the extra distance as well. We took her up on the suggestion and made a reservation at this place for Michael, Jose and myself.

Without too much further research, we quickly deduced that this place meant a walk of 32kms, which we had not really planned on. The weather is still very warm and a long day on the trail was not ideal.

After a bit of deliberation, we came to the decision that we should take some transport to a certain point (Sem De Cima) which was about 14kms away from Agueda, and then walk the rest of the 18kms into Pinheiro Da Bemposta (the albergue Hostel Minho Garcia is a further 1.5kms from this town – out in the bush by a river). This decision was also vindicated, as our guide book advised us that most of the camino trail today, was going to be along suburban roads again. We have been travelling far too much on roads of varying degrees of size and busyness up till this point, so anything we can do to avoid this situation is worth considering.

The walk into Pinheiro Da Bemposta was certainly a major improvement from the last few days, with a fair portion being in bush / forest areas – a really welcome change. The walk today proceeded pretty much without too much issue – we arrived at the hostel at around 1:00pm after having a quick lunch at Pinheiro Da Bemposta.

The albergue itself is set in an idyllic bush location, alongside a fast flowing river. Because of its bush location, there is no city noises the only sounds you can hear are the water flowing, and the birds chirping.The whole of the albergue complex was once a grain crushing mill; you can still see a lot of the equipment and infrastructure which was utilized in its hey day . In fact, our dormitory was situated over where one of the water wheels was located, and of course, you can hear the gentle hum of the running water from the room.

The whole place is so perfect, that I think we will have trouble leaving tomorrow. The whole afternoon was spent looking around at the site, conversing with other pilgrims, enjoying the filtered sunshine and a drink – a tough life, to be sure. 

We took the pragmatic decision for dinner to eat in at the albergue, as it had good kitchen facilities, so a couple of us went to a local supermarket up the road and bought a few ingredients, and ended up cooking a great dish of pasta for the five of us. The dinner was excellent, as was the company.

Tomorrow is looking like a ‘longish’ day – and again a change of plans to try and even out the last stage or two to Porto.