We woke up in pretty good shape this morning thanks to a hot shower and good night’s sleep. I was surprised that my feet showed no evidence of yesterday’s over use.
This was one of those stops where we stayed for two nights, a great option avoiding the daily reloading of the packs. The Rota Vicentina has options. Rather than hiking point-to-point, you can do up to 24 circular routes along the way or mix up the two. Yesterday being such an intense day, we elected to walk around town then to the coast and back, part of a circle route, about a three hour walk.
First we had backpack food in the room for breakfast. I carry my favourite French instant decaf with me and there was tea in the room. We walked to town to find the ATM and the bakery for a pastel nata, our favourite Portuguese custard tart for added energy 😉. We ran into Lisa, from Germany (now living in Madrid) as well as David from Toronto, both of whom we met on the trail yesterday. We are quite the attraction on this hike, being in our 70’s 🙀, two of the oldest hikers. Lisa told her parents there were two their age on the walk and they wanted to see our picture! We agreed to a selfie.
Today’s walk was all paved and along a road with the exception of about 2k each way where you’re walking through a farmer’s field.
The beach was the classic rugged coastline variety.
This beach has two sides, this one is the ocean facing side. The opposite side faces a river resulting in calmer, warmer water, but swimming wasn’t on our agenda.
While walking we saw the trail we descended yesterday slicing through the hillside on the other side of the river.
We headed back to town for a pizza lunch and back to the room for a quiet afternoon.
Life's a Stitch 
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