After last night’s weather forecast, expected today to be another bright, sunny day; no such luck. Tomorrow, Saturday is scheduled to be wet, cold and rainy and since it’s a 24K walk, not looking forward to it, but expected that today we would have an easy walk and a sunny day. Neither prediction lived up to expectations.

Overcast, cool and threatening day. We were on the road by 9:15 and after a walk of about 1K we were once more on the Camino. If you’re wondering, there is no one specific Camino route. There are a number of possible routes, 2 or 3 or 4 slightly differing ways to choose from, some...

Left at a reasonable time this morning and off to start our Camino. I had set my alarm for 6:30 this morning since my luggage needed to be at reception by 8 to be picked up and carried to my next hotel. Of course, and entirely predictably, I woke up at 3:30 in a panic thinking that I had missed the alarm and slept through. No more sleep after that.

Met my traveling companions, Hilarie and her three friends at their hotel and we headed off. Today was a 24k leg to our first night's lodging...

Arrived in Porto yesterday, Monday, afternoon after a long overnight flight and a 2 hour delayed flight from Frankfurt to Porto. I have been here before; when Diana did her Camino a couple of years ago, I rented a car and the two of us poked our way from Santiago down to Porto, where I left her to return home and she to continue on to Lisbon.

It was August then and extremely hot and since Porto's main centre is built on opposite sides of the very steep banks of the Duoro river, hot and tiring work to climb the steep streets...

I'm in the final stages of preparation for walking the Portugal route of the Camino de Santiago. I leave on Sunday evening for Porto, spend a couple of days getting myself organized and start the walk from Porto in Portugal to Santiago de Compestela in Spain on my 72'nd birthday, March 24.

Daughter Diana did the walk from St Jean Pied de Port in the French Pyrenees to Santiago a couple of years ago, about 753 kilometres. As a surprise, I met her at the end of her walk on the outskirts of Santiago and walked the last kilometre with her to the Cathedral. It was a very moving experience and we had talked about the two of us doing a portion of the walk together. Unfortunately her teaching schedule only allows her to do it in summer and I've been concerned about tramping through the heat of a Spanish summer so we have not yet found a way to make it work...