Tag Archives: Douro region

The Last of the Longer Days

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… and only one day to go. This really has flown by!

I’ll add all the technical info later, as well as add some photos and videos if possible, since some didn’t load. Photos are loading slowly because I somehow hit the raw option. I’ll fix the photos when I get home … and probably add the other info then as well. I don’t want to spend time on this right now!

Today began with packing our bags as much as possible (saving teeth brushing for after our meal) that are to be transported to our next and final location. We went down to have breakfast (I’m so uncreative I have the same thing every day, it seems!) and pick up our bagged lunches. I suspect the hotel is having difficult getting certain supplies because the fruit we requested turned into a juice box! We both just left those in the room when we checked out.

We had looked out the window a number of times and it appeared to be raining, so rain jackets were donned and we started on our way. The first part of the journey was backtracking from the day we arrived in Alijo. I’ve noticed, though, that when I do a route in an opposite direction I frequently see new things, so I have no complaints about that. I’m sorry I didn’t get great photos of the village, but I can’t manage to take photos of it all, I guess!

Dan checked in with the navigation app, making sure he had the correct day loaded up. And of course he did.

We began with a fair amount of uphill, so we could look down on Alijo.

Reaching a level spot we ambled along and I heard a cuckoo. I just love those birds.

I’ve neglected to write about the gorse. We were told long pants were a good idea — that the plant can really do a number on one’s legs. Since I never wear shorts that wasn’t even an issue, but when I saw the thing (which I believe we’ve seen every day and few days it was everywhere) I could understand the long pants suggestion!

Since it was raining quite a bit yesterday we had a lot of mud encounters. (Later on another couple on the walk passed us and the woman said, “I hate mud!” I understand completely.)

I couldn’t seen to stop taking photos, despite the mud — the Douro region of Portugal is just amazing! Occasionally we could hear workers in the field. Not wanting to be intrusive I only took a photo with them in the distance. I’m not sure if you can see them or not. Sometime during this portion of the walk our jackets came off and cameras came out I was so glad, because there were a few flowers I really wanted to capture. (I didn’t get them all on the iPhone, though, and those are the only photos I can share until I get home.

Then it was lunch time. Please excuse that left side … yes, that’s my finger! Oops.

While eating Patrizia and Rudy walked by … well, first they stopped and we chatted for a while. I really enjoy the couple: they are easy to chat with. (And I believe we will be seated for dinner with them.)

More photos …

The signs for the Camino were seen frequently and we have to occasionally check to make sure we are still on the same route as those who are doing that walk.

More photos …

Through the village of Vilarinho de Cotas (if my gps info is correct) with some uphill. I have to say I’m really quite comfortable with uphill climbs, and I rather enjoy them sometimes.

And then the last leg to our lodging, which included a good bit of uphill and amazing views and one photo of someone who has started a fire (did I write about this already? I think so!) which we assume has something to do with making lunch, but we don’t know for sure. In some of these photos you can see the Douro … we are nearly back where we started this journey! (There should be more photos below … sorry they aren’t appearing. They’ll have to wait until we get home, I think.)

Finally we arrived in the town of our lodging, Casal de Loivos. Prior to reaching Casa Casal de Loivos we went out to an amazing viewpoint (clearly popular as cars drove up and people would get out to catch the view and take a photo). It’s a fabulous view, and we could see Pinhão below, our starting point for this walk.

Then we arrived at the Casa and wow! The nicest place we’ve had with Portugal Green Walks so quite the wonderful way to end our journey.

Following showers and a bit of down time we went to get our “welcome drinks” and immediately saw Patrizia and Rudy there. We spend a good amount of time outside chatting and enjoying each other’s company. I’m so glad to have met them. Initially the Casa owner had said we’d be sharing a table with them, but Patrizia said they brought a little cook stove and would make a dinner in their room. So we had a private dinner while the rest of the lodgers were upstairs for their dinner. With my bad ear I was pretty much okay with this, though it felt sort of strange.

Tomorrow is a very short walk day and ends as we began, in Pinhao. Then it’s on to other adventures!

Ciao!

Another Day, A New Village

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Distance: 16.4 km | 10.2 miles
Elevation: +626 m | -569 m
Altitude: 238 m to 696 m
Climb: 2053 feet

We had to be packed and ready to go by 9:00 today: our driver was to pick us up then and drop us off at “the big tree” where we begin our walk of the day. The provided mileage implied this would be our longest walk.

But first, breakfast and collecting our lunches … and wouldn’t you know our driver was actually early?!

Starting at the big tree, we went past a shrine and down a cobblestone street, eventually ending up on a dirt road.

For a while it was mostly downhill which means … you know, right? Uphill is coming.

As always the walk is a jumble in my mind now, but I can tell you it was beautiful.

But about the not so beautiful: people leave toilet paper right on the side of the path. Now it’s true we have to create our own outdoor bathrooms, but a little attention to clean up would be nice. (And no, there are no bathrooms provided on these walks unless you opt to go into a town and eat somewhere. I’ve learned to deal, but mostly I have the ability to wait until we arrive at our next lodging!)

But back to the walk …

The first village was Sabrosa and some suggest it was where Magellan was born. Before quite reaching the center of the village we saw what I now learned is the communal laundry tank. Then it was up to the village itself.

We were walking between two stone walls much of the time. I love the wall gardens you see on them. The plant life is really fascinating. The views over those walls are spectacular.

We saw some baby grapes.

Eventually after a painful downhill (reminder to self: tighten your laces!) we reached a road, went over a bridge, and went back up the other side. I knew it was coming, of course, because of the steep downhill.

Eventually we sat down to eat lunch, right below a winery (closed due to it being Sunday).

Then more climbing. It sort of felt like it wouldn’t ever end.

But with painful climbs come beautiful panoramas.

A few more photos …

And when we reached the village of Favaios I knew we were getting closer to our final destination! By that time my feet were tired. Really tired.

From there I guess I ran out of steam with the iPhone because here are the next photos I took!

Yes, we reached our final destination! We arrived in the village of Alijó, and we are staying at Pousada Barão de Forrester.

After getting out our chargers and attempting to log in to the WiFi here (hmm. Maybe not?!) we showered and then went down to have a relaxing drink and dinner.

Now I’m beat and the pillow is calling my name.

Day Two — Miles To Do!

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According to the booklet:
Distance 13.1 km | 8.1 miles
Elevation: +400 m | -405 m
Altitude: 584 m to 788 m
Climb: 1,315 ft

Breakfast at Quinta Manhãs D’Ouro wasn’t available until 8:30. It appears breakfasts might be later on this trip. Since we have no luggage transfer today we didn’t have to rush to get things packed, and we could sit around for a bit. (I’ve managed to play my Wordle game every day so my streak continues. The other games aren’t always getting played, but I do like keeping the streak going. News you can use … or maybe not.)

I realized (too late!) that I forgot to take a room photo when we arrived. Honestly, it’s nothing worth seeing, but I still like to do these so when I go back through our trips I can remember the places. This Quinta is nothing fancy, the room is small, and quite basic. (And the tile floor in the bathroom is mighty slippery after a shower!) But it’s a very quiet location, and those running it are friendly.

But oh the view!

Breakfast, dinner, and, if we opt for them, drinks, are on the main floor.

So after breakfast we got ourselves ready, including our rain coats because, surprise, surprise, it was raining. I opted to leave my rain pants at the Quinta though, since my weather app said the rain would subside and it wasn’t going to reappear until much later.

Our app with instructions for the walk said it was to start back in the village just below us, so off we went.

We tried to find the start point (where the pillory is … hmmm … not finding it!). We went one way. We went another. Pillory? What pillory?!

We finally just opted to start walking since the app will show us where we are in comparison to where we should be. But, well, um, wouldn’t you know we ended up right back by where we are staying!? We could have started from there, and would have if only we’d started the app sooner. Ah well. Reaching “our” place, though, the rain had increased enough that I decided to go back to our room (up a steep hill, mind you) to get my rain pants.

In case you don’t know, this is the rule: if you don’t bring it, you will need it, and if you do bring it, you won’t. Better to choose the latter, I believe. (And no, I never did use them!)

Getting back down the hill the rain had diminished so much we just walked on without wearing the rain pants. Initially we were on the same route we took when we passed the Quinta yesterday, but the we went up a dirt road. There was a good uphill. Not killer, but definitely uphill. We still had some rain at times, and also heard thunder.

We had some lovely views, and there was a flower I don’t think I’ve seen before (anyone? Maybe an allium of some sort?).

More views. A cemetery. A town (Vilarinho de São Romão). The rain had stopped when we neared that town.

Until we decided to stop for lunch! Go figure. This is one of our lunch bags, provided by Green Walks. We hand the bags to someone at wherever we are staying, and they hand them back full of our lunch. Handy, right? So we ate our sandwiches in the rain, and saved the rest for later because we didn’t want to continue to sit there with the rain coming down.

After lunch was another uphill walk, but then a huge downhill. I’m never jazzed about downhills. I know that means an uphill is in my future! We got to the village of Fermentões, and took some time to eat what look like pancakes at this spot with water and a bucket … perhaps a laundry spot? In any case, the pancakes were sweet and a nice thing to enjoy before another big climb.

On the climb we saw sheep, flowers, great views (eventually), and the ever-present broom (bright yellow flowers) that in our neck of the woods is considered an evil invasive species. It is ALL over the mountainsides here and I wonder what people here think of it. It’s really quite lovely, but it does seem to take over everything. Other flowers I’ve seen are lavender, some other yellow plant that I suspect is related to a pea plant (?), lupine (so far all yellow), your typical yellow daisy like flowers, and either heath or heather (I’ve never figured out the difference between those two). We’ve seen pine trees, eucalyptus trees, fruit trees, what we suspect might be nut trees (I was pretty sure I saw chestnut). There are berry plants of some sort (no blossoms or berries at this point), and obviously a ton of grapevines.

But I ramble … here have some photos!

We didn’t follow the app completely — it would have taken us back to the village below where we are staying and having seen it twice now we figured we could skip it, so back to our lodging we went. As we were getting quite close a car drove by and a man said, “Camino!” to us. Yes, there are signs that designate a Camino walks here. We’ve barely seen any walkers at all, though. Our Swiss friends from yesterday were nowhere to be seen. I’m guessing they are just too fast for us.

Getting back to our Quinta we came upstairs to get things taken care of, but eventually went downstairs to enjoy the remainder of a bottle of tinto vinho we bought yesterday. It was lovely to just relax and enjoy the view out the windows — one side showed puffy white clouds and sun and the other very dark clouds. We are learning that weather here is pretty crazy!

Next up was dinner, and it was very good. And relaxing. And I didn’t take a single photo so just trust me: we had a duck rice main after a dinner roll, sausage, olive appetizer. There was also salad, and a chocolate crepe for dessert, along with a decaf espresso. All very fine.

And I am all very tired!

Tomorrow we have our breakfast at 8:30 but our driver arrives at 9:00 to transport us to our starting spot so we will have to eat quickly, I suppose. I’m not sure if he is also the one who transports our luggage as that wasn’t mentioned in our booklet. So we will learn about that in the morning. I think tomorrow’s walk is an easier one, but it’s a long one. But again, we’ll know when we know.

Goodnight for now!

And So It Begins

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Our bags are nearly packed for whoever picks them up to transfer them to our next lodging. I’m dressed, including my new Green Walks shirt. Looking outside, on our little patio, I see that there is fog up in the mountains, and I am guessing we will be walking up that way.

But first we have to wait for breakfast, and it sounded like that isn’t served until 8:00. (But perhaps one of us will go down and verify that.)

If the weather app is to be believed we might avoid rain today, but we’ve learned not to trust the app entirely, so we are prepared for the wet stuff if we do encounter it.

I read about “snakes and ticks and caterpillars, oh my!” Yes, caterpillars. The kind that sting and can even kill a small animal. And yes, snakes of the venomous sort. But mostly we can avoid things, and snakes are more scared of us than we are of them. (Okay, maybe just as scared if you are talking about me!) There are also dogs we might have to threaten with our trekking poles. But all these warnings are, I’m sure, things that might happen, but probably won’t. At least that’s my hope!

For now, though … downstairs to see about that breakfast time, and once we finish our breakfast and packing we’ll be on our way. Stay tuned for the Day One Report.