Coimbra to Anadia

I left Coimbra just before dawn and caught a beautiful sunrise as I walked along the Rio Mondega. The trail soon left the city and I struggled for awhile trying to avoid being hit by passing cars as they hurried towards Coimbra along the narrow roads. Not only were the roads very narrow with no shoulder whatsoever, there were also huge overgrown bushes and trees hanging down into the street. I actually welcomed the muddy forest paths even though they were mostly flooded from yesterday's rain.

About halfway through the day it started to rain again. While in Coimbra I bought a thick plastic emergency raincoat. My expensive Goretex raincoat was doing a great job as long as it wasn't raining, but anything heavier than a light mist sends it into complete failure. So when the rain started I added that to my Goretex coat and added my lighter weight disposable plastic poncho on top of it all. That even covered my backpack. I looked like I was shrink wrapped for shipping. But, ridiculous as I looked, I made it all the way to Anadia completely dry. Except for my shoes and socks which were of course saturated as usual.

With the heavy rain there were not very many good photo opportunities. I did think this little church in one of the little towns was quite lovely though. After that point it was just too difficult to dig my camera out from underneath my many layers of plastic.

I'm staying at a hotel in Anadia tonight. There is a tiny restaurant next door that seemed to have nothing but a ham and cheese croissant and a few types of soft drink. Further down the road there is a tiny store that has pretty close to nothing. But I did pick up a couple of snacks for the road tomorrow.

The is no rain in the forecast for tomorrow which I find very exciting!