Valenca September 13

The walls of the fortress in Valenca. Across the Rio Minho in the distance is Spain.

Chris and Gerhard enjoying a mid afternoon hamburger with beer.

After yesterday´s post, we bought a few groceries at a small mercado behind the bar then stopped at a restaurant on the way back for a so-so meal of grilled chicken, rice, and greasy French fries. Back at the albergue, we shared our bottle of vinho verde with two South African women staying here. They deliberately are walking without husbands because the husbands walk too fast! Marge was asleep by 7:30. I went to bed an hour later and we had plenty of quiet sleep to make up for the noisy night before.

Up at 7 am and walking by 7:45. It was a gentle climb (compared to that of yesterday) of 2.5 miles out of the valley of the Rio Couro and down into the valley of the Rio Minho. The rest of our twelve miles today was an easy walk into Valenca. The last few km were through the dreary suburbs and industrial area into the city.

The albergue just outside the old town does not open until 4 pm, so we went with the Austrian father and 29 y.o. son into the touristy old town, which is am impressivley old and large fort high overlooking the Rio Minho. However everything inside is very touristy, souvenir shops and tourist buses. Again many of the tourists stopped and stared at us and some took pictures, like we were some kind of geek sideshow. After wandering around for a while, we found some of the German and Austrian pilgrims at a bar, so we joined them for a while. I had a beer, Marge a cola, and shared a salad. We wandered back to the albergue, but still closed. I tried but could not find free wifi, so am posting this from a pay computer in another bar.

This is our last night in Portugal, tomorrow we walk across the bridge over the Minho and into Spain!