We spent the last day of the trip walking from Porto to Foz. Although you can take a street car or bus, it was a nice hour and half walk from Porto to Foz. It was along the Douro river for the most part. Foz is located at the mouth of the Douro river and Atlantic Ocean.

Luckily for us, the walk was much cooler than previous days. The walk also happens to be the start of a Camino that starts in Porto. Since we left in the morning, we were on the path with many pilgrims starting their 14 day journey to Santiago. It has been fun watching all the pilgrims on their journey. We actually were on a cable car in Porto from a gentleman from Beaverton, Oregon who was beginning his trek to Santiago.

Foz was a nice beach town. We walked around until some restaurants opened so we could get lunch before walking the hour and half back to Porto. We found a nice little restaurant with a very nice owner from Argentina. He said there are a lot of Americans living in Foz and even gave us his business card after lunch in case we ever decide to move there.

We headed back to Porto to pack and get ready to travel back to the US. It was nice seeing different places that aren’t as touristy. Some of the recommendations came from AI which has been a helpful new tool in planning travel. For now, we are headed back to the US and back to work soon.

We arrived in Porto yesterday and have spent the last couple of days walking around the city. The city is built on a hillside and has beautiful old buildings. There is a double deck bridge that you can walk over either on the lower deck or the upper deck if you want to get a good view of the historic city.

It has been so nice to be in a larger city where you can get food any hour of the day. The smaller towns were nice but you are very limited to what hours you can get lunch or dinner. Our first stop was to the Time Out Market to get an easy meal.

The city is very crowded with tourists. You probably hear more English than Portuguese in the main areas. And every corner has tourist information and tours you can book. So it has been an adventure of how to navigate the city without the huge crowds of tour groups every way you turn.

By law, Port wine can only be made in this region. You can still see the old boats that used to transport the wine in the river. The boats are called Rabelos and were used from the 13th century all the way to 1971. They were built with a flat bottom to help navigate the rapids on the river and avoid hitting rocks in the shallow areas. Although they aren’t in use now, the wineries do race them once a year from the mouth of the river to the bridge.

We drove to northern Portugal yesterday with a quick stop in Santiago. It was inspirational watching pilgrims finish their journey and watching so many people in center cheer them on as they entered the square.

We then continued on to our next stop which is near the town of Caniçada. The hotel sits up on the mountainside looking over Cávado River which really looks more like a lake.

We spent today doing more of a driving tour of the park but did have a couple of small hikes and visits to very little towns. The park is also on the Spain/Portugal border. One of the mountain roads took us through an old check point for the border crossing. This is a popular area for hiking, and there are historic Roman roads.

One of our stops was Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Peneda. It was an old sanctuary that was carved into the hillside and is a major pilgrimage site.

Another interesting thing was finally figuring out what these concrete structures were that we would see in towns. They are called espigueiros which are granite granaries that are iconic markers of the agricultural heritage in northern Portugal. They were designed to store grain (mainly corn) in this damp mountainous climate. Although most that are still around are from the 18th and 19th century, the introduction of the granaries in this area is dated back to the 16th century.

We drove from the mountains to the northern coast of Spain. Ribadeo is more of a fishing port but it is still on the northern Camino route so we see a lot of pilgrims on their way to Santiago.

There are some beautiful beaches in this area. One of them is called As Catedrais beach or Beach of the Cathedrals. The best time to visit the beach is at low tides because that is when you can see a lot of the rock formations and arches. We lucked out on our timing and were able to visit right around low tide. The sand is very clean and perfect to walk on. The Atlantic is cold and you didn’t see a lot of people in the water.

The thing about getting to the beach at low tides means we missed getting a good lunch in. It is hard to time when you can check in at a hotel and when restaurants close. Unfortunately for us, that was the case and we couldn’t find a restaurant to eat at. And places don’t typically open back up for dinner until 8 PM. Luckily the hotel had some snack options and we were able to get a small ham and cheese sandwich. On the plus side, we have had good breakfasts at the hotels which has helped carry us through the day. Although breakfast this morning was a little different. You had to ask for milk for your cereal but we didn’t know you had to ask for cold milk. They poured steaming hot milk into the corn flakes. Not something I would recommend anyone trying.

Picked up the rental car this morning at the Bilbao train station and drove west along the northern part of Spain before heading into Cangas de Onis. We had three stops along the way and all were very unique and interesting to see.

The first was a very old town called Santillana del Mar. The town is a very well kept medieval town dating back to the 8th century. The town also happens to be part of the northern route of the Camino de Santiago so you see some of the pilgrims walking through the town. Only residents are allowed to drive into the town but there is a great parking lot in the newer part of town and you can cross the highway into the old historic town. We tried a traditional pastry while in the town.

We then headed to Comillas which is a cute town (also part of the Camino de Santiago) and visited the Gaudi house which was very different from his architecture in Barcelona. A short walk around the town and then we stopped at a market to grab materials to make a sandwich. we drove down to the beach to eat lunch down there.

We then stopped at Llanes which is a cute town in northern Spain along the coast. There is a nice walk above the city with great ocean views. Definitely worth a stop to stretch the legs. Would recommend all the stops, including a wrong turn with a great view, for the drive from Bilbao.