Camino portugues

Beautiful, easy ride with beautiful views on the seaside. If following it, skip de detour towards the highway at the end of Matosinhos :D

A mix of pavement on the searside, trails full of rocks across hills, gravel in the shade of scented eucapliptus forests. It was a full day under the burning, late September sun, feeling like mid summer.

Oceanside all the way to the ferry in Baiona. Mind the schedule, we got there on low tide and the first one was at 2pm. Also mind the hour change, this day will be one-hour shorter. Beautiful scenery going south-west around the peninsula before reaching A Guarda. Prepare yourself to hop the bike past some rocks, and for some steep, partially paved climbs. We followed the yellow arrows that mark the way for Santiago de Compostella pilgrims. When going west down to the beach, expect to see beautiful scenery, and pay with some steep pushbike.

Starting calmly rounding the bays around Bayona, with some suprinsing bay-crossings on sand, and with one episode of steep narrow round steps from the beach back to the road. Again near the ocean on flat roads, distance covered faster on the way to hilly Vigo. The track has a detour for supermarket & lunch in the park, instead of following the low, industrial sea side front. (Also keep on Sanjurjo Badia instead of going down towards the sea and back up, as we did). Going up to get on "Senda de agua" is hard, but it's surely worth it, beautiful forest with great view over the city. From Redondela, a mix of paved roads and rocky forest trails, make for a hard but beautiful last part of the day.

The route stats going around forests and vineyards, with lots of pilgrims walking in the first part of the day. Long satisfying lunch in Caldas de Reis. Lost the way and went around quite a bit afterwards. :) Winding left and right to avoid both the highway and the "N", busy road, the path goes through picturesque villages, and some paved, beautiful forest roads, to end up in the east, hilly part of Pontecesures.

Going through beautiful villages and paved forest roads, a beautiful ride ending in hilly Santiago.