Thursday 8th April

24.5 km (274. km)

Bonus kilometers

We certainly didn’t do Coimbra justice but that’s the nature of Caminos. We were up and out and walking by 7:30 am hoping to arrive at our destination early in the day. My feet were being a bit problematic but I reasoned that a few kilometres down the road I’d feel better. Unfortunately, those kilometres were mostly on busy roads. I stopped and swapped my boots for tevas but had to keep stopping to readjust, drink more coffee and pray for new feet. The downside was that 5 hours into our walk we had only gone 18km.

Taxi for Sore Feet

We stopped at Mala to reassess the feet situation and decided a taxi was the solution! We arrived at the Albergue around 1 and had a fabulous lunch consisting of the famous suckling pig of the area (sorry any vegans here!). I then made a decision that I haven’t made often and decided that this walking along busy roads is not what the Camino means to me so tomorrow we are taking a train 80km to Porto. We are staying there until Sunday when hopefully my feet will have repaired somewhat and also hopefully being on the actual route will mean we have more of the Camino experience that we are used to! So that’s it until Sunday. Fingers crossed all is OK by then!