Wednesday 13th April

35 km (351 km)

Today started off strangely, bidding farewell to Robyn who has decided that her leg is causing her too much pain for her to continue. She is in Santiago until Friday and then going to stay in the flat in Edinburgh until I return on April 22.

Churches, more churches and no coffee stops

I was on the road by 7 am which makes the first 20km a lot easier I find. The route was for the most part along lovely forest trails and the weather was perfect for walking; warm enough without being problematic for tired feet. I walked and talked with a few more ‘pilgrims’ today. 2 girls from Lithuania, another from Estonia and another from the Czech Republic as well as a few Spanish, French and German. There were many promises of coffee stops today but covid has taken its toll and all possible stops were boarded up until about 6 km from our destination where a café appeared out of nowhere with the best Pastel de Natas 🙂 The cobbled ancient roads are very pretty but very unforgiving and after 35km I was glad to finally see Pont de Lima.

Pont de Lima

The entrance into the town was through a beautiful tree lined promenade beside the river Lima. It is apparently the oldest town in Portugal and it has a lovely atmosphere I could spend some more time here but I don’t feel I have earned another rest day yet. So I’ll put it on the ever-growing list of places to be revisited at a later date.