Day 67: Valenca to Caminha

May 7, 2023

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As we looked at the routing from Valenca along the Minho River to near the Atlantic at Caminha, Google kept mentioning a bike trail for it. We are leery of bike trials in Portugal, but found web sites that seemed to confirm the thing was actually paved. So we went for it. We can say right away that it turned out to be paved bliss (except for some washouts) all the way east. This gives us reason to suppose that it is also paved in its section to the west of Valenca, making it potentially a 100 km paved trail by the river. Super!

The river path is well developed, with lots of you are here signage, picnic tables, and red coloured pavement.

Hooray, this is going to be a really easy day!

Riverside fishers are a common sight, though mainly in France. We seldom if ever see them catch anything. The lady came running, unfolding a portable net. That made me think that getting something on the line was a new thing. But no, there was already one, or two, in the bag.

Clearly they had caught carp. They look gross to us.

The main attraction of the route today was the smooth ride by the calm river. But there was some other interest and attraction, such as a medieval bridge, some holes to seriously watch out for, and a large number of oncoming day cyclists, general public, and camino walkers.

Here's a challenge - signs listing the birds you should be able to spot along here. There are a lot of them!

Look, the Hoopoe. Upupa epops is its scientific name, alright.

Some very calming shots:

Oops! Maybe better to fix it than to go find a stick and tape.

It was not all clear sailing. This washout area was about 1/2 km.

Here is the path going by the meadow - so nice.

In places there was a certain risk in being too near the edge, or a collapse about to happen.

Dodie refuses to be intimidated by people riding double.

How do they feel abut their encounter with our force of nature?

At a place called Lenta Park, there was a pond with ducks. But something else caught our attention, as well as that of many of the other people around. Very frequently there was a great splash in the pond. Some thought this was big fish eating little fish, but we rather feel it was some sort of spawning activity. We tried to be patient and to catch a fish doing the splashing, but no luck.

Looks like the same raven we have at home.

From time to time during the day I will declare a coffee break. I will pop open my silicone cup and pour coffee from the thermos, while digging in the food bag for a goodie. Dodie used to be able to participate in this with a hot chocolate from her own thermos, but since I lost mine she gave me hers, and now has nothing. A a point today I declared a coffee break, and Dodie waited around for a fair bit while I went through the ritual. But soon she was eager to take off. I was still sipping the coffee, but of course I can easily catch her. So off she went. For about three feet, then, crash!

What had happened was that during coffee her front tire went flat. She was not expecting that! I threw my coffee and bike to the ground and went to the rescue. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of the bike and victim on this one. Dodie says I should have taken the time. Ok, next time.

Dodie has a new bruise to show, but she is not showing it!

The next step was the forensic analysis. The tire did not seem 100% flat, so we decided to try pumping it a bit. That's when we noticed what seemed to be a split in the tire near the bead. It was puzzling, because just that would not cause a loss of air (until the tube would blow through it). But still, the tire was losing air.

Here is where we took advantage of the entire Minho River, conveniently running just beside us! I took the wheel down to the river and it revealed a leak not near that split (or whatever) at all, but in the tread. That allowed us to go into our standard flat tire routine, and we quite easily patched it.

Meanwhile, we had for a day or two, now that a return to Canada is drawing closer, been thinking about our car keys. Where had we put the darn things? This morning we dumped out a few bags looking for them, but no luck. Well guess what? some geniuses had put them safely with the flat repair stuff. Score!

That split near the valve looks suspicious.

Good thing they are keeping a whole river right here for us to be checking tires with!

Now we bring in the specially skilled staff.

This is what did it. It's time to replace our tires!

The keys! Note keychain from Czech Republic. Need to update that with Portugal!

Now we could go back to looking out to the river and the Spanish mountains.

The path led through a little town, before busting out to the river estuary, and a distant view of surf.

Shades of green in what is likely a salt marsh.

Sort of typical for Portugal, the long bikeway crashes to a halt with no comment or signage. No matter, we are only about a km away from Caminha.

We pulled in to the town centre, which was exactly where our hotel was! to one side was the town tower, and ahead, the square, with lots of restaurants and tables.

A nearby street, seen as I wait for Dodie to see if the hotel is ready for us.

Yes, our room is ready. The bikes can park right at reception, with their rental bikes!

Our hotel is called the Design and Wine. They are so arty they make me wild. The rooms do not have numbers by the doors, but only cryptic names. Ours is the "Video Art" room. Some other names are "Illustration", and "Theatre". The rooms are not in alpha or any other order. I searched two entire floors of the hotel before returning to reception with bags in hand, to ask for guidance.

I took some bags to the room and got into the elevator to go down and get some more. The thing started off, but soon lurched violently to a stop. And the lights went out. Surprisingly this is not the first time this has happened to me this trip! It definitely tests whether you are afraid of the dark or not. I'm not, but a crashing elevator is concerning. There must have been some button glow, because I decided to try choosing a floor, after the open doors button had no effect. No choosing a floor either! Ok, fine, I hit the alarm. That at least made a little "beep beep".

After some time, the lights came on and the elevator headed for "somewhere". Listen Mr. "Schindler" maybe your next model could list the floor numbers? Eventually the elevator "landed" and the door opened. Standing there was Dodie and the reception lady. The lady assured me the elevator would be fine now, and we could go back up. Say what? Yes, the problem, she said, was not in the elevator but rather was because power had died to the whole building. "It happens", was her philosophical diagnosis.

Once in our room, we did our usual review, mostly of where the electrical outlets were. But Dodie also noticed the shower. This one had an upper and lower horizontal set of jets, and overhead shower and a handheld wand! There are five controls, and the bottom one in fact has two levers. Now what?

Ah, the instruction manual is on the wall. Good thinking! But if you are stuck, dial "9" and they will come in the shower, presumably, and coach you!

You also need a training course to discard your napkin.

The "video art" part of the room probably relates to the walls (and ceiling) being covered in QR codes. They link to Youtube videos. Some work, most are broken. Can I complain to reception about that?

Thanks to the bikeway, we arrived very early in the day. So we stashed our stuff and went out to look at the town. We started with the church beside the town tower. Again we found the overwhelming use of gold colour and ornate carving. The main altar too is based on stacked boxes. The roof is wood.

See the iron rods that no doubt are holding the walls.

The houses of the town are attractive, with tile facing, and grillwork balconies.

We came upon a small and clearly very old chapel, dedicated to St. John. The decoration inside felt primitive, which produced the feeling of great age. Portuguese language still seems strange to us. St. John is Sao Joao, and as you see from the sign, there are also some accents on there as well.

The final religious building we run into is the Church of Our Lady of Assumption. The descriptive sign was far too complex for us, even standing right there, vs. looking at a computer screen later. However we did see a wood roof, blue tile lines walls, and a golden altar with stacked boxes. One feature that was rather unique was a wall where the carved statues were joined by a snaky or rope like representation. We decided this must be branches of the tree of life. The tree seemed to be growing out of a bearded guy lying on the ground, while at the very top no doubt was Jesus. with a big crown. It seems clear to me that artists in these churches have a lot of latitude, and develop their own takes on theology. It's unlikely the Pope or Vatican approved all the designs we have seen on this tour.

Finally, the church had in parking its own passos float.

We walked back though the attractive streets, pleased with having landed in this quiet and attractive town. Out our window is a view of the estuary and the distant surf. We are now looking forward to being directly on the Atlantic coast.

Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 2,787 km (1,731 miles)

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