Arcos – The Premeditations of Markus O'Reallyus

It is 4 p.m. in Barcelos, a pretty town about 10 miles inland from the Portuguese coast. Tourism appears to be the town’s main business, with a lot of modern shops plying their wares in very old buildings. One of the town’s main attractions is an old Romanesque church, built in the 11th century. It is astonishingly beautiful.

We arrived in town a little over an hour ago, shortly before 3 p.m. I was impressed that it seemingly took us less time to walk today’s 20 km than it did yesterday’s 17 km. We began our walk about the slammer time, and if anything, today’s walk was slightly hillier.

Of course, it was also much cooler today, with the temperatures for whole of the morning never breaking 20 Celsius. (I’m guessing, mind you. I don’t have a thermometer with me, and I didn’t see any temperatures displayed anywhere.)

The sun only burned off the cloud cover about an hour before we reached our destination, and even now my weather app says it’s only 22 C, about 8 degrees cooler than Arcos was when we arrived there yesterday.

All of this – the cloudiness, the cooler temperatures and slight dampness to the breeze – along with quieter traffic, by and large, made for a really pleasant walk.

We met more pilgrims on the road, too. A fellow from Ireland, an English couple, the group of Brazilian pilgrims who’ve befriended us along the way, and others, too.

The Brazilians are my favourites so far. So friendly, funny and outgoing. Only one of them, Carol, speaks any English, and neither of us can speak more than a few words of Portuguese, but we all seemed to manage together drinking wine in the courtyard of the hotel last night, and joking around at breakfast this morning. I’ll miss them when we eventually part ways.

The scenery today was even more interesting and impressive than yesterday, as cornfields yielded, here and there, to lush gardens with pear, apple, orange, lemon and lime trees, grape vines, roses, and flowers I can’t begin to name.

The houses, too, were frequently beautiful, especially in the Barcelos suburb of Pereira, where ultramodern casually coexists with medieval ruins, and many houses have small shrines built into their walls and fences.

We lunched in the village of Pedra Furada, named for a large stone with a hole in its centre situated outside an 18th century church. Legend has it that Saint Leocadia was buried alive, and escaped by drilling a hole in her erstwhile tombstone with her head.

Now we are getting ready to go explore Barcelos before dinner, abd then prepare ourselves for tomorrow’s 15 km walk to Balugães.

Adele hiding from the camera behind a way marker.

Today the Caminho became a reality for us. Up at half past six, we had our bags (and ourselves) in the lobby two hours later, as instructed. Then we were driven through suburban and industrial areas not suited to walking, and dropped in the village of Mosteiro on the outskirts of Porto. After saying goodbye to our driver, we strapped on our packs and began the roughly 17 km walk to Arcos.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and the cobbled roads wound between tall stone walls interrupted every now and then by houses, their walls frequently decorated with blue and white tiles depicting saints, or scenes from biblical stories. We heard church bells announcing nine o’clock from towers in several directions.

We stopped at a small church dedicated to Santo Estavo (St. Stephen), in part because of its beautiful tile facing, and in part because a sign indicated “Public W.C.” After using the facilities (adjacent to the car park), we looked through the small cemetery. I’ve never seen so many elaborate grave markers in such a small space. As we were leaving, some fellow pilgrims, a group of six from Brazil, waved us over and told us that someone had gone to fetch a key so we could all look inside. It was astonishing, all the statues and decoration. I’m not religious, but it was impressive how much effort went into making and preserving this place.

We continued on between fields cornstalks a good seven or more feet high. The sun shone brightly and the morning warmed quickly. It was to become a very warm day for walking.

Cornstalks towering over Adele

By noon we reached the village of Vairao, which was a little beyond the halfway mark of our walk. We stopped at a churrasqueira near the town square for lunch. Nearly every table was already reserved, but the owner made room for us. The place soon filled with locals, and queue of others formed while we ate. Adele had BBQ chicken, and I ordered the fried octopus. The food was delicious, the staff were incredibly friendly, and it only came to €16.

The afternoon walk was hot. We went through most of our water, and stopped for lemon sodas about 3 km from Arcos. I’d made the decision not to bring my water pack, and I didn’t regret it. The added weight would have been a pain.

We arrived in Arcos about half past three. The Hotel San Miguel de Arcos is a beautiful place. With stone walls and wood floors. It’s a great place to end a day’s journey, and a blog post.