Sid - 17,966 steps
21 glorious degrees
Last evening our hostess accommodated and fed 9 pilgrims, including folks from Germany and Portugal , of all places, and Miss Australia. Germany has won the race for the most walkers that we have met. Miss Australia, from Melbourne, has travelled everywhere in the world and is having quite a bit of fun. She entertained us for a while with a dissertation on the coffee crimes of Portugal. She surmised that Portugal has no clue about how to make coffee and the best coffee in the world is brewed in Australia, further proclaiming that Canada and their coffee is much worse than even Portugal. Ha....I thought Portugal's coffee was pretty good, but dared not offer an opinion!
Yesterday we met a lady on the camino from Hawaii....the only American to cross our path. There is no shortage of conversation about the USA election, all, without exception, in complete disbelief of the progression of a (un?) civilized society. Watching BBC USA coverage is most entertaining also!
Leslie, from Canada...two children in Calgary and one in Vancouver, is our hostess.
She was so kind to us and helped us decide what we should do next!
On our path this morning
And a rogue dahlia
And a portable cafe parked right near our path
We stop for coffee a bit further on and notice this tidy unit parked in front of the entrance
Turns out the driver stopped to pick up the empty wine bottles
The country side here is beautiful, but notice that people burn stuff...stuff that stinks...so too bad!
Entering Valenca
And we notice this sign as we are leaving Portugal
Pretty sure the word 'latest' should have been 'last'
We leave the country of 
Walking on the bridge crossing the Rio Minho
At mid point on the bridge
Indicating the border!
Looking across the river
And enter
And right away we are reintroduced to siestas....thankfully non existent in Portugal. New signage might be in order....
We really step out of our comfort zone and check into
The Tui Parador. The Paradors are similar to the Fairmont hotels in Canada , maybe not quite as fancy, but very nice. Our room
And our view
On our last trip to Spain we regretted that we didn't stay in a Parador....and truthfully we have paid more to stay in a Super 8 at home! We are enjoying the indulgence!
We walk back to Valenca and wander about the market area and have a late lunch, we lost an hour as we crossed the border
There are some beautiful textiles here but nothing I love enough carry home with me!
On our walk back to Tui we stop at
And have a pint of
The Guiness tasted much better in Ireland!
We had planned to stay in Pacos for two nights, and were hopeful that my passport would catch up with me. After most of the pilgrims left this morning Leslie sat down with us to discuss our options..it became apparent that my passport wasnt catching up to me any time soon. She said if it was her passport she would be going back to Lisbon to get it. As we processed that thought we came to agree with her. So we packed up our gear and continued on our journey. I'm glad we did, our shorter days give us lots of time to explore our surroundings.
When we get to Santiago we will have to bus/train to Lisbon..again...pick up my passport...bus/train back to Santiago to fly to London for our connecting flight home. I am so grateful we have enough days to fit everything in!
Looks like you are destined to visit Lisbon three times. And, if it doesn't incite a coffee war, I have to agree with Miss Melbourne. Australian coffees are hard to beat.
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