Our Walk Along the Rota Vicentina Fisherman's Trail

What's Next after the  Rota Vicentina? The Camino Portuguese Coastal and Espiritual Having begun in Lagos along the southern shores of the Algarve 12 days and more than 200 km ago, we have now reached the end of the Rota Vicentina in São Torpes.  While completing this trail and exploring the Vicentina coast feels great and has been an amazing experience, we are still very much at the beginning of our hike along the length of Portugal.   After the Rota Vicentina, we are now set to make our way from Proto Covo to Lisbon along uninspiring roadways and byways to connect with the Camino Português.  From Lisbon, we will venture along the central route to Porto, where we will move to the Coastal and Espiritual variants to Santiago de Compostela and eventually onward to Fisterra, Spain. Given that we have already trekked the Camino Portuguese Central in 2019, this year we are setting out to simply enjoy it rather than blog about it from Lisbon to Porto.  However...

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.” John Muir, “Mormon Lilies”   Walking Portugal’s Atlantic Coast   When we arrived in southern Portugal in the spring, the Rota Vicentina was not a journey we had expected to be making. Our plans for the year had originally centred on continuing north through Canada toward the Arctic Ocean, but widespread wildfires, evacuations, flooding and trail closures meant that our ongoing journey on the Trans Canada Trail would have to wait. Suddenly faced with an unexpected opening in our plans, our thoughts returned to Portugal, a country we had come to love while walking the Camino Português several years earlier.   This time, however, we wanted to see a different Portugal. Rather than immediately returning to the Camino, we would begin at Lagos on the southern coast and follow the Fisherman’s Trail of the Rota Vicentina west toward Cabo de São Vicente and then north through the Algarve and Alentejo to Porto Covo ...