Day 4 Viana do Castelo

Monday 28th April 2025

We see lots of signs along the way giving kms to Santiago. Not sure this one is correct I think it’s a bit less than that(or maybe I hope!). We walked through Mar and it was a fiesta or something yesterday. The roads were covered in flower decoration for miles! Each area had different decorations but they were all beautiful and what an effort to put in place!!

We found a beautiful chapel with a pilgrim statue outside. Also this pilgrims shrine, with stones and messages left by pilgrims passing through. We also at last identified the crocodile/football statue that is on many gate posts as the Porto football team. I don’t think I would allow that on my gatepost!!

Then a steep walk up the hill to the church of Santiago de Castelo do Neiva. On the way we passed these crosses, reminding us of the crucifixion in Palermo, which seems like ages ago! The church was beautiful, loved the stained glass pilgrim!’ But everyone just goes for the stamp, they don’t look at what is around them, we find that very dispiriting.

The countryside has changed and we walk through woods, it is very hot and we are tired and haven’t stopped for a bit when we come across this donativo!! We remember them from our Camino Francais! This man has set up at the bottom of his garden and we are so pleased to see him!! As is everyone else! I have watermelon and Robin has a beer! Feeling better we move on. When we left earlier today I saw that bread is delivered to houses, usually in a bag hung in the door handle. We were so excited to see this house which had a bread box!!

It is such a hot day!! We reach Anha and as you can see I am hot and bothered!! We stop at a cafe but the power is off. Do t think much of it, we have a cold beer, use the light in my phone to go to the toilet and in our way. We found various washing places, typically for the local people to wash their clothes. This one has a beautifully painted ceiling. We are walking to Viano do Castello and the last 4km are brutal. Walking on the pavement, no shade, pretty tired but we just need to keep going. We need a Camino song I think!!

Finally we reach our hotel and discovered the power outage is more serious than we realised!! Our room is very dark, no hot shower and we can’t find our way anywhere as maps on the phone aren’t working. Plus we don’t want to use the phone as the rumour is the power could be out for some time!! Need to conserve battery!! It was very interesting!! A lot of shopkeepers didn’t close, they just sat outside their shops and took cash. But all the restaurants closed and all the supermarkets, apart from one which had a generator!! By the time we found it there wasn’t much left, but we had dinner in the dying light in the lobby of the hotel. Rice crackers, guacamole (hummus had sold out as well as all bread!). Old chorizo and some Doritos!! Then off to bed with our headtorches(thankfully we had them!) . Power came back on late at night, but the alarms didn’t stop!’