Day 18 – Barcelos to Portela – Ponte de Lima – 25-May-2018
Good walking conditions greeted us this morning as we started out for Ponte De Lima. It had rained over night – not a great deal, but enough to wet the roads and trails that we were to take. The atmosphere was overcast and heavy, and the threat of rain was very much evident.
It seems we have left behind the plethora of roads and highways, finally, and we can now enjoy the bush, forest and agricultural areas to the fullest.
We passed numerous freshly ploughed fields, and even more newly planted ones with all sorts of crops dotting the semi regular landscape.
Of course, we passed many towns and villages as per previous days, all retaining their anonymity in the fact that they just drift by as you walk past them; the people that you meet and pass by also fall into the same behaviour; they definitely acknowledge you and wish you luck, but they’ve undoubtedly been doing that for countless years.
The journey into Ponte De Lima (24kms) progressed well and reasonably quickly, as we had made a decision the day before to send our back packs onto our destination, so we found travelling without them a breeze.
By about 11:00am, the rain that had been threatening to fall actually started to come down very heavily. This was our first real encounter with heavy rain this trip, and whilst the ponchos did their jobs, your shoes get quite soaked, as the rain runs down your legs and into your shoes. Such is life on the Camino.
We trudged into Ponte De Lima at around 13:00, but the albergue that we had reserved was not open to registration until 14:00. The rain was still falling, so the albergue owner allowed us to enter the albergue anyway and get out of the rain and the wet shoes and socks.
Once we settled in, we had a light lunch. The rain was still falling, and persisted the whole of the afternoon, which limited the possibility of getting out and about and exploring this historic place. Ponte de Lima is recognised as the oldest town in Portugal (established in 1125), but was previously an important link in Roman times to get to other places like Braga and Santiago De Compostela.
The weather certainly played a key role in our activities for the afternoon – it would not stop raining, but there was a bit of a let up at around 7:00pm so we decided to go into the old part of Ponte De Lima and took the opportunity to have a bit of a look around. It was a neat, tidy, lovely little town, with the medieval bridge being the focal attraction.
Dinner was great at a local restaurant, with good friends.