São Pedro de Rates → Vilarinho (13km)

Don’t trust the sat-nav app
The route markings were poor, so I switched on the voice prompts on my OsmAnd sat-nav app. Tracking the route on the screen using my GPX track works perfectly well, but the voice prompts are more for helping me keep an eye out for changes in direction than for relying on them blindly. A prompt to ‘turn slightly left now’ can, in 50 per cent of cases, actually mean that I need to walk to the right.

At around 10 o’clock in the morning, I reached the 200-kilometre mark on my Camino journey. 🥾🎉💪

I’d planned to walk a 170 km Camino at home, but in the end it’ll probably be 50 km longer. And to me, that actually feels a bit too short – it could have been longer. 😃

A conversation along the way

As I passed two fellow pilgrims along the way, they asked me if I was coming from Santiago and we had a nice chat. The older woman, who was resting on a stone, had set off from Porto and was heading for Santiago, or at least to the Spanish border (Valença).

The younger woman set off from Lisbon and is on the 28th day of her 620km journey to Santiago. Today, she passed the 400km mark and had spent two days in hospital due to an allergic reaction to an insect sting.
Unfortunately, I forgot to ask where they’re from; I always find that interesting.

It was a short 13km walk today, and I reached the little village of Vilarinho, where my flat is, just before midday. I had a light meal outside at a café and got in touch with the accommodation.

It didn’t take long before I received the access code and was able to get into my flat shortly after 2 pm. At €66 without breakfast, it’s the most expensive accommodation of my trip, but unfortunately there was nothing cheaper in the area. In return, I have a small flat with a tiny kitchenette and a pool with sun loungers. I just had to give it a go – although I was only in the water for 10 seconds, I spent quite a bit longer on a sun lounger.