Camino de Portuguese Day 1: Porto to Matosinhos
Traveling from Iowa to Portugal | Day 1 in Porto, Portugal | Hiking the Camino de Portuguese from the Porto Cathedral to Matosinhos | May 2026
After completing the Hennepin Canal Trail, we found ourselves with a new hobby: long distance walking. We liked the feeling of accomplishment, having something to keep us busy for a good portion of the day, having the chance to slow down and appreciate all the small things around us, all done together. What we liked most about this kind of long distance walking is that it came without the discomforts that we had experienced while doing more traditional backpacking trips in the US. Instead of sleeping on the ground in tents, we slept in our comfy bed in the van at trailheads. Instead of carrying everything we’d need for a week on our backs, we only had to carry enough water and snacks for a few hours of walking before returning to the van. Instead of the hike being all consuming of our days, it only took up half the day, so we were still able to work and relax for the rest of the day. Of course we’ve known for a long time that we enjoy hiking together, but in the past year I’ve found it to be one of the most comforting ways to cope with the grief of Charlotte’s passing.
All that to say, after finishing the Hennepin Canal Trail, the first question we had was what trail do we hike next? Which was a far cry from the way I felt after completing our longest backpacking trip as of yet, the Centennial Trail in South Dakota back in 2021. After that trail, I wasn’t sure if long distance backpacking was something I actually liked. But now, I could feel a new obsession forming in my mind, and the desire to walk as many long trails as possible was taking root. We kept up with walking regularly almost every day for a month while we thought about what our next big hike would be.
Enter: the Camino de Santiago, a historic religious pilgrimage that we’ve known about for a long time, and had started to think about seriously starting last fall. Following Curtis’ job in the Quad Cities in mid May, he had an extended time off from in person jobs which provided the perfect opportunity for overseas travel and a long distance hike. We were also very interested in trying out European backpacking, and while there were many long distance trails across Europe that we were interested in, the Camino seemed to be the most established. It had enough infrastructure to support all the pilgrims that travel it every year, had plenty of resources online, and was the most cost-effective, especially considering we were planning at the last minute.
Whenever I thought about the Camino de Santiago, I always just thought about the most popular route that travels from the French side of the Pyrennes Mountains across Northern Spain, ending in Santiago de Compostela. But over the years we’ve heard about the Portuguese Camino, and when we really started our research we learned how many trails and variations of the different trails existed. It seems that all roads lead to Santiago! After researching our options, we decided that the Camino de Portuguese from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain would be the best choice for us this time around, as we could complete it in 2 weeks without hiking too long every day (and leaving extra time for a little vacationing beyond the hike) and it was easy to reach, with flights to Porto being some of the best priced we could find at the last minute.
We booked our trip on our last night in the Quad Cities, 5 days in advance. Which wasn’t quite as last minute as our Ireland trip was, where we booked it 2 days before leaving. Honestly I prefer the 2 days in advance because there was no time for anxious thoughts to creep in, we pretty much just crammed all our planning and researching in, made quick arrangements, packed, and left. This time around, all those extra days left me filled with doubts about our plans and let me stress about every little detail. I guess it didn’t help that we also only made one reservation for our time there, which was for the first 5 nights at a hotel in Porto using hotel points. After that, we would be on our own, walking between towns, searching for places to stay each night. The concept was foreign and left plenty of room for concerns. But we pushed through those feelings, kept researching and prepared ourselves the best we could!
When the day finally arrived, my mom drove us to the airport, and with that our journey began! Our trip to Porto had two connections, one in Chicago and another in Newark, NJ. It was the kind of travel day where we felt like we spent more time sitting on tarmacs than we did inside airports. Our first two flights were delayed which made the connections rushed, but both us and our bags made it onto our last and longest flight in time, and that’s what matters! As a bonus, flying into Newark got us TWO new New Jersey counties because our terminals were on opposite sides of the county line, and now we only have one county in NJ left, which should be easily claimed by one trip to NYC and crossing a bridge!
Our last flight went smoothly, with Curtis deciding to pull an all nighter while I pretended to sleep, hoping that would count for something. We were ending our time over the ocean and nearing Porto as the sun was rising over the hills to the West, making for a beautiful first view of the country. Once we landed, we went through customs and then waited for the visitor office in the airport to open so we could purchase some Andante cards, which would cover all our metro and bus rides while in Porto. With that settled, we hopped on the metro and took it to the Trinidad station in downtown Porto.
Like I mentioned earlier, we had booked a hotel in Porto for our first 5 nights here. Our plan for that time was to get adjusted to the new time zone, find our bearings in a new country, and to start section hiking the Camino. Because we couldn’t check into our hotel until 3, we decided it would be best to just dive right in with walking our first section, in order to adjust to carrying our backpacks and to fight the jet lag. After getting off the metro, we met our first pilgrim, a woman from Germany. We wouldn’t see her again as she was starting today and going much further than we planned to, but it was fun to have only been in this new country for a couple of hours and have already met someone!
Our first stop in Porto was at the Cathedral, where we picked up our credentials — basically a passport for pilgrims, meant for collecting stamps along our journey, and which would also be our pass to staying in the public Alburgues, which are hostels for pilgrims. We got our first stamps from the cathedral, and then paid to take a tour of the building. The cathedral is dated back to the 12th-13th centuries and is built in a Romanesque-Gothic style, but the true beauty of it is inside, all the details on the tall golden altar, and the blue and white tile murals on the walls around the courtyard which we would soon come to recognize as a very iconic Portuguese style. Better yet were the views that the top of the tower offered us of the surrounding city, of the orange terracotta roofs, the houses and buildings of the old town all packed in together, the steeples from other churches standing out across the horizon, and the more modern buildings on the South side of the Duoro River. We don’t often pay for many indoor tours of cathedrals, churches, museums, but we felt this one was very worth the small admission fee.
After we were done with our self-guided tour, it was time to ‘officially’ begin our pilgrimage. We decided to walk a little further South to the Dom Luís I Bridge and call that our official starting point. The bridge itself is a sight to see, and offers great views of Porto and the river in either direction. But we would return later to walk the entire way across and enjoy the views some more; our hike had officially begun!
The Portuguese Camino has several different variations that one can hike, the two main ones being the Central and the Coastal route. After much deliberation, we had decided that the majority of our hike would be following the Central route; however, we wanted to walk a portion of the Coastal route, so we decided to follow the Litoral route along the North shore of the Duoro River to the Atlantic, then walk along the ocean North to Vila do Conde, where we would go inland and meet up with the Central route near Barcelos. We thought this would probably be more scenic than walking straight North through Porto. But unlike most pilgrims who could probably hike this route from Porto to Barcelos in 2 days, we were going to do it in 5, breaking it up into smaller sections, commuting to and from our hotel near downtown Porto, and enjoying the city during our extra time. (We were only doing this because we had hotel points to use, if we were paying for each night it would have been more cost effective to just start the hike and stay in hostels like most do.)
We walked back to the Cathedral, then took narrow roads steeply downhill to get to the Duoro River, then began our walk West. Once by the river, the trail was flat and easy, mostly on sidewalks or metal bridges paralleling the narrow parts of the road. Honestly much of it was a blur because of how dazed and tired we were, but at least it felt like we were being productive and still doing something with our first day in Portugal. The area was getting through a heat wave, and while it wasn’t as hot as it had been, it was still plenty humid. Thankfully today would be the hottest day for a while! We took several breaks in the shade and ate snacks we had stashed away from the airplane.
As we neared the ocean, the surroundings transformed from more city views into parks and beach town vibes. We started to feel the cooler ocean breezes, and finally we were arriving at the Atlantic. Here we came across our first fort, which we wandered into hoping to find a stamp for our credentials. This one was called Forte de São João Baptista da Foz, and Curtis had heard it was free to visit. As we started to walk through its dark halls, we realized it was vacant which made it a bit spooky and we wondered if we were actually supposed to just walk in, but it felt so refreshing to be in the cool halls with a breeze blowing through the openings that we didn’t want to leave. We found our way up to the walls and enjoyed the views of the ocean and a nearby lighthouse, then made our way back outside. A cool spot, but no stamp to show for it.
Next we began our walk North along the ocean, and we started to see more pilgrims on the trail, identified by their backpacks with shells tied to them (and because hikers generally stick out when everyone else here is enjoying the beach!). The coastline went between sandy beaches and rocky areas, both beautiful in their own way. We couldn’t help but go trudge through the sand just so we could touch the Atlantic from Portugal for our first time. We passed parks and monuments, and eventually came to another fortress – Forte de São Francisco Xavier. We wandered inside to find a very friendly gentleman who told us it was just 50 cents per person to tour — But still no stamps. We wandered around and enjoyed the views some more before continuing on our way. Both of these forts were 17th century and had designs very similar to Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine Florida. Which of course is natural since they’re from the same time period!
We finally made it to Matosinhos after walking for 8 miles and managing to kill enough time for our hotel to be ready. We also finally found a visitor center with a stamp just as we were leaving the trail. We decided to call it good for today, then wandered inland and found our way to the Blue line for the metro heading back into Porto. The ride back into the heart of the city went by quickly, and as we ascended the elevator from the Bolhão station, we were greeted by one of the most beautiful churches that we saw on our entire trip, the Capela de Santa Catarina, which is covered with blue and white tiles. As it is so beautiful, it was also quite crowded, but since this station was the closest to our hotel, we would get a chance to see it every time we came and went from the metro.
We made our way to our hotel, which was the Arts Hotel Porto, Tapestry Collection by Hilton. We got all checked in and settled in to our room, where we showered and cleaned up after our long travel day and hike. For dinner, we ended up eating at a brunch restaurant across the street because we just wanted something that was open earlier so we could finally go to bed. We would get more adventurous when we knew we could enjoy it more. Finally, we returned to our room and allowed ourselves to go to bed just after 8, a little earlier than we should, but there would be time to work on that later. We had made it through the longest day, and were starting to feel a bit more confident in our decision to take on this adventure!
