Caminho do Norte: Day 1 – Valença to Ponte de Lima

We started our caminho by rather ambitiously combining the first two stages recommended on the Caminho do Norte website. This meant our first day’s hiking distance would be a rather terrifying 36.8km.

Still, however tough our first day of hiking, it had to go better than yesterday when a series of unfortunate incidents involving a level crossing accident and a problematic engine meant our 3pm arrival in Valença ended up being just after 8pm. In all, it took us roughly 12.5 hours to get from our home in the Algarve to the start of our caminho on the Spanish-Portuguese border. To put this into perspective, Google maps reckons you can do the journey by car in between six and six-and-a-half hours.

If the website is to be believed, we’re going to have a bit of everything today in terms of terrain – forests, valleys, mountains. The translated text warned that there was one point where it gets hilly and mountainous and advised pilgrims to slow their pace. All well and good if you’re only walking 18km and finishing at Rubiães but not such good advice for those walking a lot, lot farther.

Yesterday’s travel problems also meant we hadn’t been able to walk the short distance between Valença’s fortress (where the caminho begins) and our accommodation, And so, on this chilly, clear morning we found ourselves heading slightly north first to walk those vital caminho kilometres.

The early hour – we set off at 7.50am – meant there was still low-lying mist over the river and the near hills. We’d have liked to linger longer at the fortress, which was very similar to the one we’d visited at nearby Monsão in June, but there simply wasn’t time.

Valença is the point where pilgrims heading to Santiago do Compostela cross the road/rail bridge into Spain. We’d loved this stretch along the Minho in June, however on this trip we’d be heading inland and south.

After a hilly stroll through the old quarter of Valença – with its stunning views and beautiful and deserted narrow streets – we were on our way.

Disaster

We’d been walking along a pleasant, cobbled lane when disaster struck: the caminho route ahead was blocked with a large JCG-type digger. Newcomers to Portugal might have been alarmed but, knowing how lax health and safety regulations are here, we waved a cheery ‘bom dia’ to the road diggers and wobbled our way past the large, deep crevasse.

The oldest pilgrim in town

Within the first hour or so, we began to pass groups of north-heading pilgrims – some friendly, some not so much. All had one thing in common … they were decades younger than me. We passed a mobile food van selling Belarusian food and naively believed, because we were novices at this caminho lark, that our entire route from north to south would be lined with such culinary delights. A local woman jokingly asked us if we were ‘reversing’ in recognition of us walking in the opposite direction to the Caminho Português pilgrims.

Going backwards?

At 10.30am, we stopped for elevenses next to a cemetery in Fontoura. The views were delightful: wooded hills, wind turbines, crypts …  There was a confusing caminho sign informing us Fátima was 368.24 kilometres to the south. Heck, what was going on? The entire caminho was only 364 kilometres – had we somehow been going backwards all morning?

Soon we joined a shaded dusty lane and entered a landscape we were all too familiar with: drystone walls, moss and ferns. As the sunlight filtered through the autumn leaves scattering dappled light on the ground, it seemed the Caminho do Norte had been a good choice.

Roman route

As was the case on the Caminho da Geira e dos Arrieiros in June, it seemed that this pilgrim route was following a much older Roman road. In fact, we were now walking along Roman route XIX ,which dated back to Augustus and ran for 299 miles, linking Braga (Bracara Augusta) with Astorga in Spain (Asturica Augusta).

There was a bridge (medieval I believe), a lane with enormous cobbles underfoot and then our first corn field (we were to see a lot of these, often with the corn left rotting on the stalks).

It was around 12.30pm when we reached Rubiães, the official end of the first stage. My feet were already starting to ache from all that cobble walking and we still had another whole stage ahead of us. To celebrate the halfway mark, we stopped for a drink at the local café (2,80 euros for a beer and coca cola) where we got chatting to some Canadian pilgrims heading north who had already finished their day’s walking. ‘How will you spend the remainder of the day?’ Harri asked, to which they responded with ‘doing some washing and then relaxing’. It did seem awfully early in the day to finish, but I guess everyone’s caminho experience is different.

The killer hill

 

I was perturbed when the Canadians warned us we had a steep downhill section ahead of us, however Harri refused to be concerned. Not all pilgrims are experienced hikers, he assured me. But they are Canadian, I challenged. Canada has a lot of mountains.

But before we came down we had to go up, something I did painfully slowly, using the lovely landscape as an excuse for my frequent stopping and starting.

We had just reached the top of the descent when a tall, rangy man approached and warned us the route ahead was dangerous.

Was he exaggerating? Well, our descent was certainly technical: steep, with a lot of boulders and one short section that resembled a narrow canyon. I took things slowly and was super careful where I was putting my feet, standing aside to let the uphill pilgrims pass. Hiking poles can be a pain to carry but it’s at times like this that they come into their own. I survived the killer hill in one piece.

At the bottom, we found ourselves on a wide, sandy vehicle track. Harri was convinced that, had we ignored the caminho waymarks, we could have followed the track from the summit and enjoyed a much easier descent. Just in case anyone coming in the opposition direction was tempted to do just that, there was a huge yellow arrow carved into a rock pointing pilgrims up the killer hill.

Nearly there

The final nine kilometres was full of variety. A delightful stretch of cobbled path with boulders to our right and a steep drop to the river to our left diverted our attention from our aching feet.

As we approached Ponte de Lima, it struck us how autumnal it felt here in northern Portugal with the leaves changing colour and falling onto the ground. In the Algarve, late September feels more like spring with the landscape coming alive again after the hot, dry summer.

And finally we were crossing Ponte de Lima’s iconic bridge, very relieved to have finally reached our destination. Our first day had been long – and tough at times – but it was never anything but scenic.

Summary

Our first day on the Caminho do Norte went well. The scenery was beautiful and we were impressed with the maintenance of the caminho paths. We managed to complete the two stages as planned, but it was tough going at times, particularly that steep descent (which, for me these days, is almost worse than a prolonged uphill stretch).

Accommodation

We paid 52 euros for a double room at Graciosa Guest House (no breakfast). Our room was spacious and beautiful in a classic, quality kind of way (the furniture looked antique).

Our route

These combined two stages were mapped at 36.8km with 635 metres of ascent.

Tracking with Outdoor Active, I recorded 38.5 km with 629 metres of ascent.

Download the GPX file of our hike here.