Date: 12 April 2018

Walked from: Anadia

Walked to: Albergharia-a-Velha

Distance: 35.5 km

It was a long walking day, but then once you’re soaking wet (I believe the correct meteorological expression for describing today’s weather is to say that it was peeing it down) and have already been walking in rain for hours, what difference does an extra 17km more than I actually needed to do really make anyway? And apparently rain is good for the skin. Or the soul. Or something.

Today’s 35.5 km may have been walked in trying climactic conditions, and almost entirely along roads (some of which had a bit more traffic than was necessarily ideal), but I laughed my arse off all day. Some of that was me giggling at the absurdity of my choice of holiday, but it was mainly because I walked again with Tim, who, despite presenting the linguistic barrier of speaking American-English, is hilarious – and a fellow huge fan of one of the best films of recent years… obviously I mean ‘Muppets Most Wanted’.

Comedic company aside, the highlight of today (even more so than the lunch eaten just before exiting the Lidl store we’d ducked into, and which was consumed – the lunch, not the supermarket – as we stood staring out at the rain) was definitely the hostel in Albergharia-a-Velha. A friendly, helpful host (he cleaned and dried our soaking wet walking clothes for us), the excellent company of a very nice Polish woman called Magdalena and a huge pasta and two bottles of wine dinner that set us back less than €6 in the local supermarket were all Very Good Things indeed.