El Camino Portuguese Grijo to Porto

El Camino Portuguese  

Grijo to Porto

My schedule stated that I was to be picked up from my hotel at 8.30 by the same taxi company that I should have called before but didn't because I don't have a phone and couldn't borrow one or find a working public phone.

After some chasing phone calls by the receptionist, the taxi eventually turned up more than an hour and a quarter late. He ferried me to my start for the day outside the Mosterio de Sao Salvador de Grijo, the 13th century monastery where the Italian pilgrim Corrado Confalonieri (1290 -1351) is known to have stayed en route to D+Santiago de Compostela.

                                       

The local council offices adjoining the monastery.

The main facade of the Mosterio de Sao Salvador de Grijo and admittedly not my best piece of photography but the sun was already high behind the building and a better shoot further back and to the left would have been into the sun and it would have all been in shadow.

                                       
Just outside the gate to the monasteries a cemetery and I had to have a look but the atmosphere was spoilt by the huge factory to one side which also destroys the approach to the entrance to the monastery.

Some of the grander mausoleums.

On this section, there were new signs to follow such as this yellow arrow on a blue background...

...and this scallop shell and arrow on a blue background on a metal pole. They may have been yellow once but the sun has bleached them to grey or white.

A photo of part of a three kilometres section of calzada romana, the Roman road that cuts through the forest with walls either side and a stone flagged road base which in true El Camino style goes up a 465 metres high hill but luckily the ascent is gentle but the descent towards Porto is steep.

Finally, I reached the cathedral in Porto, a truly magnificent building on the inside but not that much decoration on the external western facade of this 12th century cathedral.

And as I followed El Camino away from the cathedral, it was a steep descent and I was glad that I didn't have to walk up it.

My evening meal of veal in a cream sauce salad chips and rice.