This morning would see us leave Portugal and enter Spain as we walked from Vila Praia de Ãncora to A Guarda. Vila Praia is a fishing village with a beautiful long beach that was designated a village in 1924 and had its official name changed from Santa Marinha de Gontinhães to Vila Praia de Âncora. From a population of 1,199 in 1864 the village has barely grown to 4,623 in 2021.
The village church, built in 1936 in the local style, was looking beautiful decked out in flowers. We walked out past the inevitable photo-op town sign and the Forte da Lagarteira built in the reign of Pedro II of Portugal (1667-1705), who strengthened the defences of the border line of the Minho River and the oceanic coast south of its mouth.
As we walked along the coast path to Caminha (and the ferry to Spain), the path was lined with Flowering Gum trees on one side and rocky coastline on the other in what was quite a change from the long sandy beaches oof yesterday.
We could see Spain in the shape of Monte de Santa Trega in the near distance as the coastline slowly returned to sandy beaches. After a couple of kilometres on a sandy path through a wooded area we came to the River Minho and our “ferry” to A Garda in Spain.
The ferry was a short speedboat ride across the river and our disembarkation point was where the boat was pushed partially up the beach. From there we wandered around the coast a short while to sit on the balcony of a restaurant for a coffee and admire the view. In the distance was an island that held the Farolim da Ínsua de Santo Isidro (Ínsua Lighthouse). We were in no rush as today was a very short day.
The coast path around Monte de Santa Trega seemed to be a very popular walking / jogging path for the local population – this was the most people on one path that we had seen and very few were pilgrims heading in our direction. We saw some Roman Salt pans as we walked (the exploitation of salt by the Roman by evaporation dates back to the seventh century BC).
We then walked into A Garda, which was bustling with people out enjoying Sunday lunchtime. By the time we had checked in to the hotel, showered and headed out for a beer everyone had disappeared for their siesta!.
Tomorrow we head up the coast to Oia on another short walking day.
