The morning began with computer stuff (still on my Wordle streak), and then off to breakfast we went. We also picked up our lunch bags. It’s always interesting to see what a place will give you … some things are a surprise until we unwrap them at lunchtime! Today was a chicken sandwich. By that I mean chicken between two pieces of bread without any condiments. This happened with our last two days as well, although then it was ham and cheese with no condiments. We also had a salad, with packets of olive oil and wine vinegar today, so I took some of the dressed salad, including cucumber, and put those in to the sandwich. Then there was a nice piece of cake which maybe was spice cake. And, finally, an apple. Which is sitting in my hotel room as I type.

Then it was time to do our circular walk. We went out and quickly decided that we should put on our rain jackets. It was just misty enough …

From there we left the village and (don’t be shocked!) went past a lot of vineyards. Looking back you could see Alijo.

And of course not just vineyards, but olive trees, a house with lovely flowers, and then we saw some beautiful lupine.

Then it was time to do downhill, knowing full well what that meant. (I didn’t think walking and taking this video would be wise, so I told Dan I’d catch up after filming.)

We could hear workers, and although I didn’t take a photo, saw bags hanging on poles which I assume held their lunches. I looked back again to see Alijo still in view.

Some vineyards had clover growing between each row. The sky continued to look ominous, but so far we were staying dry.

We reached a cobblestone road continuing upwards, and I was glad for no rain since those can be more slippery when wet.

And then … poppies. I do believe they were California poppies, in fact.

At one point we heard someone call out … it was our Swiss friends, Patrizia (sp?) and Rudy! They would, of course, pass us as we are slower between being slow hikers and taking photos. It was fun to see them on the trail, though.

We entered the village of São Mamede de Ribatua after 4.97 miles. First was the statue garden …

and then more poppies … of the papaver sort this time. (More common to see these here.)

We continued our walk in the village until we reached an overlook where you could see a reservoir.

Close to the overview we sat and ate our lunch while a sad dog gazed at us, hoping, I’m sure, for a treat. Poor doggie … we were hungry!

Sometimes you see one place in near ruins right next to a home that has been fixed up. It’s not as easy to see in this picture, but the left part of this is what appears to be an abandoned place.

Continuing through the town …

and then it was time for the big climb. Up, up, up … for .99 miles. Gotta love that it’s .99 and not 1 mile, eh? One fun thing about a climb is seeing how far above a village you get. So of course I had to take some photos to prove I was making progress on the climb.

We reached the top and then it was smooth sailing for a good amount of the walk.

That being said (okay, written) it looked like maybe rain was falling elsewhere, and the sky still had that ominous look.

Sometimes we come across the sign for the Camino (I’m not sure which one), but when we’d see a sign like the one in this photo it means “don’t go this way!”

Now we aren’t actually on the Camino, but we often share the same paths. So far I think the only people we’ve seen on our walks have been people doing the same walk.

Shortly after the last shot you see above the rain began. We quickly packed up our cameras and pulled out our rain jackets (we had removed them partway through the walk). And that was the end of even iPhone photos. It was more rain than we’d had before, and by the time we got back to our hotel our pants were even quite wet. (We just didn’t put on rain pants because we were so close to the hotel.)

After getting things hung up in the shower to dry, we went downstairs for a little drink and snack. First we wanted to get dinner reservations, and ended up talking to two couples from Arizona who are a day behind us on the walk. They had stopped in about the middle of their walk today to do wine tasting. I’m not sure I’d be able to do that! But then they have vineyards so I suspect they are used to doing tastings. When we tried to get a reservation for 7:30 (the first time available for dinner here) we were told it would have to be 8:00. Ah well … I don’t sleep at all well even with a 7:30 dinner, but so be it!

We ordered our drinks and some chips. Alas, no chips, but she brought out something else for us. Guess that’ll do. Then we spent a lot of time discussing how we were going to get to our destination once this walk ends completely because — ta-da! — the train very well might not be running still. The strike continues through our move day, and at the train site I could see which trains were definitely running (very few) which didn’t include ours. However there was also a note that said there might be more that are running on the fourteenth, which is when we travel. To be on the safe side we bought bus tickets again. It’s somewhat inexpensive insurance and I think it’s better safe than sorry.

Now I’ll be brief: we had dinner, I ate too much, and I’m tired!

Boa noite!