José makes breakfast that consists of apple pie and roasted potatoes
Since he's still busy with the potatoes when I turn up then I only have
coffee and pie and trouble tearing myself from the conversation about
physics. The german-portuguese-welsh couple from next room continues
about plasma and nuclear fusion.
Today is totally flat until the end of the world known at the time of Columbus. Blue silhouettes of Fóia and Picota shimmer over wind-swept grass. I feel very light because my big backpack doesn't have to visit the end of the world. No sweat, no need of rest stops or shadow. There's no shadow anyway. Only strong wind.
Some abandoned industrial buildings and then begins a long strait road. First rocks dropping into sea. From the only trees by the road comes Sara. So we finish together. The finish is full of cars and people. Souvenirs and the last fried sausage before America.
I don't have the feeling of having finished something. Maybe because of the crowd, maybe because walking actually continues. Via Algarviana is not famous here. Next trail is more known and more populated. In addition I'll walk in so to say in the opposite direction. The more people will I meet. Have to get used to read route descriptions backwards.
I also don't have any Portugal-feeling. Only the feeling of this corner of the country. I remember hills, old men walking in villages and sitting in cafes, shepherds, agriculture made by hand, dying villages, flowers, song of birds, streams, lizards escaping from the road, frogs, orange and mandarin trees that belong to nobody, heat and dust. Portuguese have an enourmous amount of dogs. One of the goals of making this trail was to attract tourists away from the beaches and give the locals some additional income. In the small villages in the beginning everyone knows what the foreigner with a big bag does there and the tourist is handed over from one village to the next with a warning that someone is coming who wants food. In bigger places you're an anonymous anomaly.
We sit on the rock for an hour and try to guess from footwear which tourist will fall into sea or sprain an ankle. I discover that my boots are beaking apart. So five years is the life span of Salomon boots. Then Sara goes to catch a bus and I start with Rota Vicentina. Commercial video and listening comprehencion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb8tWUQdmhY. This trail has two partially overlapping parts: Fisherman's trail and Historical Way. The first one follows old tracks for going fishing, is closer to the sea, meant only for pedestrians, has bit more challenging landscape but is also shorter. I'll follow this as much as possible and the rest of the time take the other one.
It would be more impressive to approach the lighthouse from this trail. Rocks and waves and wind. There will now be a lot of pictures of the edge of the ocean that borders with Portugal. Because 'the ocean controls everything around us, it is power' (Captain Siggi, Under the Arctic Sky). There are also new flowers for my collection.
Back in Vila do Bispo I spot a minimarket and save 600 meters from going to Lidl. And coming back. There are fruits and dark bread instead of muesli bars.
Two French girls have arrived at the accommodation. They are ending Rota Vicentina and confirm the need to book a bed ahead.
Today is totally flat until the end of the world known at the time of Columbus. Blue silhouettes of Fóia and Picota shimmer over wind-swept grass. I feel very light because my big backpack doesn't have to visit the end of the world. No sweat, no need of rest stops or shadow. There's no shadow anyway. Only strong wind.
Some abandoned industrial buildings and then begins a long strait road. First rocks dropping into sea. From the only trees by the road comes Sara. So we finish together. The finish is full of cars and people. Souvenirs and the last fried sausage before America.
I don't have the feeling of having finished something. Maybe because of the crowd, maybe because walking actually continues. Via Algarviana is not famous here. Next trail is more known and more populated. In addition I'll walk in so to say in the opposite direction. The more people will I meet. Have to get used to read route descriptions backwards.
I also don't have any Portugal-feeling. Only the feeling of this corner of the country. I remember hills, old men walking in villages and sitting in cafes, shepherds, agriculture made by hand, dying villages, flowers, song of birds, streams, lizards escaping from the road, frogs, orange and mandarin trees that belong to nobody, heat and dust. Portuguese have an enourmous amount of dogs. One of the goals of making this trail was to attract tourists away from the beaches and give the locals some additional income. In the small villages in the beginning everyone knows what the foreigner with a big bag does there and the tourist is handed over from one village to the next with a warning that someone is coming who wants food. In bigger places you're an anonymous anomaly.
We sit on the rock for an hour and try to guess from footwear which tourist will fall into sea or sprain an ankle. I discover that my boots are beaking apart. So five years is the life span of Salomon boots. Then Sara goes to catch a bus and I start with Rota Vicentina. Commercial video and listening comprehencion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb8tWUQdmhY. This trail has two partially overlapping parts: Fisherman's trail and Historical Way. The first one follows old tracks for going fishing, is closer to the sea, meant only for pedestrians, has bit more challenging landscape but is also shorter. I'll follow this as much as possible and the rest of the time take the other one.
It would be more impressive to approach the lighthouse from this trail. Rocks and waves and wind. There will now be a lot of pictures of the edge of the ocean that borders with Portugal. Because 'the ocean controls everything around us, it is power' (Captain Siggi, Under the Arctic Sky). There are also new flowers for my collection.
Back in Vila do Bispo I spot a minimarket and save 600 meters from going to Lidl. And coming back. There are fruits and dark bread instead of muesli bars.
Two French girls have arrived at the accommodation. They are ending Rota Vicentina and confirm the need to book a bed ahead.
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