Today is Sunday (September 11th) AND a rest day AND we’re in Porto, so we were able to attend the 11:00 Mass at the Porto Cathedral, which is where we’ll start the next stage of our journey to Santiago. The majority of pilgrims traveling the Portuguese Camino start in Porto rather than Lisbon. Already, we can tell this is a pilgrim town. We met a few pilgrims from South Africa at Mass and saw quite a few others, have seen a number of pilgrims in and around the cathedral area, and Dave and Theresa were finally able to purchase their pilgrim shell. The Camino tradition is for pilgrims to wear a shell on their backpack identifying them as a pilgrim (the shell is a symbol of the Camino and used on all official way marks we pass).
Porto sits on the north bank of the Douro River, near where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean. Tomorrow we’ll begin our walk at the cathedral and then head down to the river, following it until we reach the Atlantic. But for today, we spent our time in the city center, primarily in and around Praça da Liberdade (Liberty Square). As is typical for a rest day, we also spent time at the laundromat and grocery store.
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