Day 3 on the Rota Vicentina

The Fisherman’s Trail

Arrifana to Carrapateira 20 km/12.4 miles

You can find all of the Rota Vicentina posts here.

Day 3 started with some happy faces because we had a beautiful breakfast at the Utopia Guest House and another day of sunshine!

We walked a while to get back to the seaside.

It’s funny how we were always happy to see it again. The sea, the sea!

Somehow it never disappoints.

We could see a dip in the path for a long time before we reached a spot where you could walk out to a rock beach.

We rested for a bit on the rocks before tackling the next hill.

For each day of walking, we took turns telling our life stories throughout the day. So when we would pause and rest, sometimes whoever’s turn it was would take a break from talking or we would ask questions. When it was your turn, you could take as long as you wanted and stop when you needed to rest.

After some time on the rock beach, we walked a little out of the way because there was a lunch spot on the map that looked pretty inviting.

It was a long dusty road to get there, but we agreed we wanted to try.

When we arrived, they were closed for vacation. Bummer.

So we sat down in front of the place and ate our snacks. We were all tired and hot so I also used their water faucet outside to fill up our water bottles. I didn’t think they would mind.

Then less than a mile down the road, we came across another place that was not on the map but was open!

We had just eaten all our snacks, but we stopped again anyway! Because why not?

The guy running the place looked like maybe he was closing down soon and he was little bit grouchy, which has been soooo unusual in my (short) experience in Portugal. But he didn’t dampen our spirits.

We fueled up for the rest of the walk.

The afternoon passed by quickly and soon we reached the long beach that marked the end of Day 3.

We took off our shoes and walked on the beach barefoot. At the other side we had to walk along a little channel to get to the town of Carrapateira. It was a rocky path along the side of the channel, so we put our shoes back on and headed to town.

We found our little apartments that had loft bedrooms over kitchenettes, and a courtyard with chairs and a swimming pool. It was cooling off quickly by then, so we didn’t swim but we did sit by the pool.

After we dumped our packs, we walked the rest of the way into town to grab breakfast foods and snacks for the next day. We thought we would come back later for dinner, but we ended up deciding to stay in town and eat early. No one wanted to make the walk up the hill a second time.