Camino del Norte 2018 – Day 30

Here we are in Porto, Portugal. We walked into Melide on our last day on the Primitivo. Melide is the town where the Primitivo and the Camino Frances join and the traffic increases dramatically. Since we walked this last 50 km last year we decided to catch the bus into Santiago.

We booked a private room at the Seminario Menor in Santiago…a wonderful huge old convent with over 80 private rooms plus dormitories with bunks. We shared a final dinner with our Korean friend Steven and were early to bed. 
This morning we met our fellow passengers as we used BlaBla Car for the first time…a car to take the 4 of us from Santiago to Porto in Portugal…a 2.5 hour drive. 

We found our albergue and they opened the doors early for us to drop our packs before heading out for morning coffee etc. At 2:00pm we checked in and then went wandering the streets of Porto. We explored the Old Town area, took the funicular from the riverside up to the bridge level…walked across the bridge and up to the Monastery for the scenic overview. We walked more, bought food and returned to our place to cook another great pasta and pesto dinner with the obligatory Portuguese wine. 
Porto is a magic place, beautiful architecture, tiles covering most of the building facades, statues, churches and wonderful pedestrian only boulevards. Impossible to see much in one short day but our schedule has us walking away tomorrow. We decided to walk the coastal route…keep the river then the Atlantic on our left as start walking northward toward Santiago some 270km from here. 
Weather is perfect..all is well. 
Love,
Tim