Adventures of the Camino Clan

The 2022/2023 School Year is done!

My grading is done and my classroom closed up for the summer.

When I got home on Friday I worked on packing up the backpack.  Thought I was good to go but during the night I thought of some things I wanted or to change.  You know, thinking about this stuff instead of actually sleeping.  😂

Finn wasn’t too sure about all the packing and busyness.  

My pack on the left, Joe’s is on the right. 💜

We left Saturday afternoon to head to Portland Airport.  Dropped the car off at a hotel for long term parking and grabbed an Uber the rest of the way.  The flight left at about 7:40 pm and was a direct flight to London.   

Wendie, Josh, Joe, Lisa, Robin (Sea will be joining us in about a week)

Obligatory foot picture at PDX.  Joe was laying on his back so he improvised.

Not tired and cranky yet….

Quick view of Mt. St. Helens on take-off.

The flight to London was about 9.5 hours.  In theory it’s a great time to get some sleep.  I do not sleep well in cars or planes.  I dozed off and on but didn’t really sleep.  

We had about a four hour layover at Heathrow Airport.  I have never seen so many huge liquor stores and huge perfume stores in my life!  We found a place to make base camp and took turns walking about, reading or just enjoying each other’s company.  It wasn’t long before we were getting on board the flight to Porto.  Luckily this flight was only two hours, which was a snap compared to the long flight. 

We got to Porto around 7:00 pm local time.  I had been worried that getting through customs would be a nightmare.  There was literally no one there except the people on our flight so we basically walked right up to a window, chatted with the custom agent, got our passports stamped and we were officially in Porto!

Yep!  They let us in!  😆

Josh got us all situated with an Uber and we had about a 20 minute ride all crammed into a weird looking van type vehicle.  There was one seat in the far back and basically looked like they stuck an extra seat in the trunk.  All the backpacks were right there next to it.  Robin took the fall for that seat.  Thank you Robin.  Lol

Our Airbnb is along the Douro River and on the Gaia side.  Still Porto but Porto Gaia.  😄

We had to walk down a river front road to get to the Airbnb.  The door was just some random door that was by a restaurant.  Some of the outside seating was really close to the door so we got some funny looks from the people at the table closest.  The place is awesome and lots of bedrooms so we picked room, figured out the Wi-Fi and then headed out to find Joshie’s favorite food…..Pizza!

Porto is a beautiful city and I loved wandering around and taking pictures.  I say wandering around because we took the scenic route while Josh tried to find the pizza place he wanted to try.  

Prada da Ribeira

Rio Douro

I found our first Camino Arrow.  These arrows are what show us the way to go while we are walking.  So they will be a tiny bit important on our adventure.  This one happened to be on the ground.  I was watching where I was walking because there was lots of uneven pavement and cobblestones and I didn’t want to trip.  

Around 9:00 pm we found the restaurant.  We ended up sitting at the bar so we could all be together.  Which meant we got to met one of the owners and chat him up which was super fun.  I love meeting people and getting to find out about their culture and their lives.  Amazing pizza, exceptional salad and I had a really yummy Sangria.  We had the best time.  The restaurant is called Farinha and I highly recommend it!  Here’s the link to the Trip Advisor review: TripAdvisor Farinha, Porto Review

We wandered our way back to the river to go across the bridge back to our Airbnb.  Sat outside for a bit to cool down.  The views were amazing.  Then we headed inside to shower all the travel ick off and go to bed.  

Prada da Ribeira 

This is the cathedral where we will get our Pilgrim Credentials and Passport tomorrow.  We can see it from our Airbnb.

I don’t know about everyone else but I crashed.  There was all kinds of music and talking and noise and it didn’t even bother me.  First, because I was just so tired.  But also because it seemed like the appropriate background noise one would have at a place along the river in Porto.  

I woke up about 7:00 am and feel pretty good.  It’s been a slow roll into the morning which is nice since tomorrow (Tuesday) we start walking.  Today we will go sightseeing and stop at the cathedral to get our Pilgrim Credentials and Passports.  That way in the morning we can just start following the arrows.  I’m sure we will probably also partake in the local tradition of taking a siesta before finding a new adventure for dinner.  

More pictures in the next installment of Adventures of the Camino Clan.  💜