Day 4: Ponte de Lima to Valença 23 Miles
We were up at 5:00 this morning and on the road by 5:30. It was still dark, but not so dark we couldn’t make out the yellow arrows guiding our way to Santiago de Compostella.
The day was cool and we made good progress. We made our first stop at at around 7 am. The café we stopped at wasn’t open, but there were chairs outside so we sat for a break. After about 5 minutes we heard movement inside and almost immediately it opened. We had three nice cafés con leite.
Just as we were getting up to leave, the bread delivery arrived, but we were committed to the road, so there was no sitting down again.
The route today was lovely, along small country roads, but much of it was on tracks through the forests, with pine trees giving us shelter from the sun. The air was cooler than yesterday, and a fresh, light breeze helped to keep us cool.
We had some lovely ham and cheese sandwiches (we had s second each) in a café just beyond Rubäies, where a very friendly dog kept us amused until we had meat to reward him for his keen attention.
A few miles farther on, as I walked down a hill into a village, I seemed to disturb something in the grass verge next to roadside wall. It was a long snake, about 2 ft long, with a forth of about 2 inches. It moved very quickly up along the wall, coiling and uncoiling to move itself.
Owen had just passed by, so Ricky and I got the fright. We looked it up on the web and it seems to be harmless, but we didn’t know that at the time.
We eventually made Valença around 3 pm. We had considered going another couple of miles on, to Tui across the river, in Spain, but we stopped at a café, had a cold drink, and decided we’d done enough in 23 miles and headed off for the local albergue.
After a lie down, a shower and doing the laundry, we headed out for food. Owen brought us to Café Antoniu, next to the fire station which is right beside the albergue.
The alarm bells should have ring when he said he had no menu, but even louder when he asked us our choices from his verbal description, chicken, pork, sardines, and told us to come back in 30/40 minutes because he had to cook what we’d chosen.
As it happened, I’d left a top behind in Ponte da Lima, so we went looking for a replacement. We were unsuccessful and arrived back in Antoniu’s 40 minutes after we’d left. There were 2 couples and a man on his own on the café.
We’d spotted on our way back in that he had a barbecue going on his balcony, where he seemed to be cooking the food. Our food wasn’t ready. We got done salad, eventually while we waited, and then some bread rolls, which had just been unfrozen.
We eventually got our chicken (me), pork chop (Ricky) and sardines (Owen). The chicken was lovely, but a just a leg, the park chop was OK and Owen didn’t like all the bones in the sardines, so didn’t eat them.
The single man at the next table list patience and got up to leave, but was accosted by Antoniu on his way out, who produced the food he was waiting for.
Antoniu could see that Ricky was rather unhappy and offered him soup after he’d just finished his main course. Naturally, he refused. Ricky is a chef and watched the performance in utter disbelief.
We asked about dessert and were shown a basket of neglected fruit, or we could have fruit salad. Owen and I had the fruit salad, and yes, it was out of a tin.
Anybody staying in the Albergue Teotonio in Valença should avoid Café Antoniu. It’s beside the Fire station, next to the albergue.
It’s off to bed now, 5:30 start in the morning. 21 Miles to do and an hour lost once we cross the bridge into Spain.
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