Today (Wednesday, September 14th) is Rich’s 78th birthday and he spent the day walking 20 miles! According to our itinerary, our walk today was supposed to be @ 16 miles. When we took a closer look at the map however, we soon realized our hotel wasn’t in Esposende as our itinerary indicated, but in the town of Fão. Esposende was 2.5 miles further down the road!
The sky was overcast when we set out but didn’t look threatening, and the weather forecast indicated a 20 - 30 percent chance of rain. It looked like the tropical rainstorm had pretty much run its course. Our route today took us inland, although we paralleled the coast most of the way. We walked quiet country lanes, woodland paths, and even crossed the Rio Nieve via a unique pedestrian bridge. We also had our share of hills today, climbing @ 1,000 feet.
All in all, a very pleasant day (for the most part) albeit long. We didn’t stop for “lunch” until @ 4:00 and by the time we finished, a light rain had started falling. We still had @ 5 miles yet to our hotel and it was well after 5:00 when we left the cafe. We hot footed it as quickly as our tired legs could carry us, hoping to arrive at our hotel before dark. The route into Viana do Castelo was via a VERY long bridge over the Rio Lima, with heavy car traffic. By this time, the rain was quite heavy and negotiating the bridge in the driving rain was not our idea of fun. All of us breathed a heavy sigh of relief when we finally reached the other end. Arrived at our hotel @ 7:00, tired but happy to have reached our destination.
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