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One of the 6 official caminos de Santiago, starting in Portugal. We walked it with our baby, against the current. Here is how it went
As the name suggests, this camino starts, and is located for the most of it, in Portugal. It is one of 6 official pilgrim routes that lead to Santiago de Compostela. This camino is considered to have the warmest weather, as one of the options of this camino is to walk on the beach.
Our camino
We started our camino Portugues in... Wait for it... Santiago de Compostela. Having done the Camino Frances and Camino de Fisterra and not seeing almost anyone walking back made us feel disappointed. The pilgrims in the old times had to go back to their homes somehow as they couldn't take a flight from Santiago. We had some more time, and decided to walk to Portugal, ending our camino in the city of Porto from where we did take a flight home. The 240km took us 19 days, with 2 days of rest. Even though you are not supposed to compare caminos, for us the Portuguese one was very different from the French one. Not only because of walking against the current, but also the people felt a bit different. More like on vacation than on a pilgrimage.
If you are planning to do the Portuguese camino from Porto just read this posts and flip the order of the journey.
Our route
I reviewed our camino in 2 parts that describe our route and some of our feelings along the way:
And on the map:
Fatima
When walking on the Camino Portuguese one hears a lot about Fatima. Especially if you are walking against the current. Fatima is a Portuguese town that is also a destination of pilgrimage, and the start of this pilgrimage is in Santiago. Although less famous than Santiago, and of course less frequented, this town has it's own share of history and legends about miracles. For us, it was very confusing when people asked us if we are going to Fatima and were disappointed when we said that we are going to Porto. Why am I telling you all this on a post about Camino de Santiago? The big bonus of the pilgrimage to Fatima is that it follows almost the same route as Camino Portugues (at least until Porto), and it is signalled very well. This makes it the only camino that is signalled also backwards, making it easy to go against the current following the blue (instead of yellow) arrows.
Our baby
At this point we were on the way for more than a month. We got used to the weight, the walk, the sleep, the food. We had our own rhythm and our baby was happy about that. Sleeping while we are walking, and then waking up when we stop to eat (a family needs to eat together, no?). We discovered that the Camino Portugues is also different from its French colleague by having more spread-out villages. If on the Camino Frances you would find a village every 3-5km, on Camino Portugues you will find one every 8-10km. By all means still doable for the normal person, but for us it meant that we had to start walking for longer periods of time. The weather was too kind with us, raining in Galicia and heating in the Portuguese part. Our baby needed to adjust to all of that. Luckily it did not affect his sleep and it seemed that he did not mind the change so much.
Final thoughts
Each camino is different for each person. Walking Camino Portugues with our baby taught us a lot. It tested our tolerance of bad weather, change of pace and even a change of language. We made it a goal, had a destination and a due date which made it feel different and we knew exactly where and when it will end. Walking against the current had its shortcomings, but we met a lot of amazing people along the way. Sometimes meeting a person for an hour and never see that person again can change your life. We ended our camino here but as the saying goes, the real camino starts now.
Did you find the series of posts helpful? Inspiring? Let us know!
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