Three days in . . .Shelly

We are on a pilgrimage tracing the steps of other faithful who have sought to visit the cathedral which is home to St. James' remains.  The path is marked by shells and yellow arrows. The early estimates of walking were about 115 kilometers (71.45 miles). 

In order to try to push ourselves into the new time zones, we worked hard to stay awake on Monday and headed to Portugal.   We were staying in Tui, Spain which is just across the Minho River from Valenca Portugal. We walked along the walls of the Valenca do Minho Fortress and enjoyed some gelato in the town inside the fortress trying to bide our time to the Spanish dinner hour.  We enjoyed a late dinner of Spanish sausages, cheeses, croquettes, and roasted pork.

 We began our hike on Tuesday and in our enthusiasm decided it was a good idea to walk back to Valenca and start there (this added a few kilometers to the trip).  We carry pilgrim passports that are stamped along the way to show we completed the required minimum 100 kilometers in order to qualify as a pilgrim on the Way.  Our first day of walking took us to O'Porrino.  Our calculations of the mileage on our first day was over 16 miles (25.75 km).  Our enthusiasm got the best of us as it was a long sunny day of walking!!  Today, we walked somewhere between 13 - 15 miles depending on the step count of our iphones (24.14 km) to Arcade.  So in two days we have gone just under 30 miles.  In those thirty  miles we have managed about three major breakdowns (1.5/day).  These included foot pain, frustration at pace, and frustration that we still were not at our hotel on the first night.  These have been equally shared by parents and children.  It is an understatement to say the kids are doing well with the long walks, the challenge of communicating, and learning to eat new food and meals.  Hopefully they will post soon about their trip.