Caminho Portugues

[BrianLe]

Anyone hiked the Portuguese "way" ? Looks like I'll be hiking it this autumn with a friend (an experienced hiker).

I've hiked the Camino Frances twice, so not a neophyte at this sort of thing, but interested in specific suggestions about the Portuguese part. For example, I read that fire stations will sometimes allow you to sleep there but often without any sort of padding; worth bringing an air mattress for that, or just stick with albergues/etc ? Most accurate gpx plot (from Lisbon, not just from Porto ...) ? Albergues or towns to explicitly hit or avoid? Any suggested gear shifts for this camino relative to the Spanish one? My spanish is decent, but my portugese not so much; worth getting a SIM chip to call ahead for reservations on busy weekends, or just too rare of an issue in September? Etc.

I'm getting the Brierley guide tomorrow and downloaded the Confraternity digital guide. I expect things will go just fine, but it never hurts to ask experienced folks for input!

[Starchild]

I'm interested in this one as I plan go do that next year. I've been told on the French Way that churches will allow one to sleep on their steps/grounds (they will not disturb you unless you are blocking something) but never had to use it.

Also Guthook app was excellent along the French way IDK if he has a one for Portugal? If not hopefully by next year .

[BrianLe]

Guthook is quite logically knocking off the most popular trails, or at least that's how it seems to me ... in that context the Caminho Portugues is small potatoes. Anyway, no Guthook, but also no problem, at least w.r.t. navigation. I found a gpx file via wandermap.net, not just from Porto, but one at least from Lisbon. And surprisingly for a not-so-popular path I read that it's well marked.

I never tried to stay at a church on the Camino Frances, but I didn't hike at really high season, so always found some sort of Albergue or something --- well, and because I didn't carry a tent. On the Portuguese way I'm not looking to crash for free to save money (though that's always a nice bonus!), but just wondering because there isn't the rich network of accommodations that the Camino Frances offers. I expect that my hiking partner and I will find something each night; sometimes just being willing to hike an extra few kilometers makes all the difference.
I was spoiled in Spain as anytime I got nervous about density of pilgrims around me, it was easy to just call ahead a day or two and reserve a place in one of the private Albergues. I definitely can't do that in Portuguese!

[BrianLe]

Just a follow-up on this; my friend and I did hike the Camino Portuguese, I just got home yesterday. Most people who talk about hiking the Camino Portuguese start from Porto or perhaps Tui, but we did the longer version starting in Lisbon.

Overall, I understand why people start from Porto --- it's not just those who can't or don't want to hike the longer distance. There were certainly good parts between Lisbon and Porto, but overall more road walking of the type where cars are driving by and more built-up portions. From Lisbon initially of course there's some of that, but I remember the last couple of days into Porto as having pretty much no places where you weren't walking by houses on roads. It wasn't "bad", but all things being equal I don't particularly recommend the part from Lisbon to Porto. The beginning of the day going out of Porto wasn't all that great either, but from then on it was good. One things, however, about the Lisbon to Porto portion --- very few other pilgrims on the route, Albergue's pretty empty. Though also less Albergues and farther apart so less options there. Still, somewhat of a shock to the system when we started encountering all sorts of just-starting pilgrims after Porto.

On the upside, food in Portugal is particularly inexpensive, which was nice. The Portuguese people are great, and we did end up staying in fire stations a couple of times and with one sort of accidental unhappy issue, these were just fine, and only required a donation (no formal charge).

While we had done this once before, we opted to hike from Santiago on to Muxia and then Finisterre, and this is all good walking in Galicia, good weather for us too. In fact, it didn't rain on us once while we were hiking, great weather really. Except that this was getting into drought conditions, Spain/Portugal went through 50 days of no rain, and some forest fires were burning pretty close to parts of the Camino that we had recently walked through (Pontevedra, Caldo de Reis). All part of the adventure, I guess.

My trail blog for the trip is at http://www.postholer.com/brianle