Camino de Portuguese Day 2: Matosinhos to Angeiros
Day 2 in Porto, Portugal | Hiking the Camino de Portuguese from Matosinhos to Angeiros | May 2026
This morning started with what has quickly become our favorite part about traveling to Europe: the hotel breakfast! And thanks to Curtis’ rewards member status, it was free for us! All the breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies, and pastries we could ever want, as well as fun coffee machines and even a mimosa bar. Does it get any better than that? While we acknowledged that it might have been beneficial to start our hike earlier each day to avoid the hottest parts of the day, we simply couldn’t give up a good breakfast (which also covered lunch because we would pack up sandwich materials for later).
When we were all ready for our hike, we retraced our route from yesterday, walking to the nearest metro station and taking the line out to where we had left off. It wasn’t as warm as the day before, but we made sure to pick up some sunscreen knowing we’d be spending a lot of time outside over the next few weeks. Today’s goal was to walk around another 8 miles North up the coast, ending up halfway between where we left off in Matosinhos and the end of the Red metro line in Vila do Conde. And preferably somewhere we could easily take a bus back to any of the metro lines.
Today’s hike started out by going inland from the coast in order to cross a bridge over the port. The city walking that we had to do kind of confirmed to us that we made the right choice by following the coast instead of the central route through Porto, but it wasn’t unpleasant. A very friendly cafe owner came out to greet us and offered us a free stamp for our credentials, and while we were there we noticed she had shells for sale, so we bought some since we regretted not finding them earlier when at the Cathedral. Once we had those tied to our backpacks, we felt like we were officially pilgrims! It was so fun to feel a part of something so big, not just the Camino de Portuguese but the whole network of trails, and to be among so many people who were on journeys of their own. And when else can you just show up in a new country, start walking, and immediately be greeted by many others wishing you a good journey — “Buen Camino!”
After navigating through the city and across the harbor, we finally made it back to the coast where our path was obvious: follow the coast line North. Right away, we saw an obelisk, a monument, and a lighthouse. We passed by a large green area where workers were setting up for a large outdoor concert. We also saw a very picturesque church next to the water. But that’s not to say the area was picture perfect the entire way. On the North side of the river we passed near a very industrial zone, which came with an off putting smell. The trail was mostly made up of boardwalk or sidewalk running within sight of the ocean, which was easy enough, certainly better than trudging through sand.
By mid-afternoon we were feeling the heat of the day and were ready to call it a day. We looked at the public transit maps on Google and found that we could follow a single bus back to Matosinhos where we could grab the Blue Line back to the hotel. Better yet, the bus stop was right next to the trail and some historic Roman baths in the town of Angeiros. We hopped on the bus here and took it back to the metro. Along the bus ride, after the bus was cut off by a particularly aggressive driver, we got to listen to all the older Portuguese women heckle and comment on the poor driving of the other vehicles. We may not speak the language, but the tone and object of their remarks was clear. Our journey back to the hotel took about an hour and a half between the public transit, waiting, and walking. When we returned to the hotel, we showered and rested for a bit before venturing back out to find dinner.
We were both feeling pretty good overall, I was just dealing with sores on my hips where my backpack straps rested. Not bad considering it had been a long time since I had last carried a large backpack while hiking. We had the benefit of not needing to carry around everything for these first 5 days while we had the hotel in Porto, but we were both regretting some of the extra weight we’d have to carry once we checked out. Our backpacks were noticeably larger than most pilgrims we had seen, mostly because we had bought them years ago intending to use them for backpacking in the wilderness in the US, and it didn’t make sense to buy smaller bags just for this hike. And of course when we were packing at the start of the trip, it was hard to not want to fill up the space we had with things we thought we’d need — this trip wasn’t just about the backpacking trip, after all, we were also going to have a few extra days of travel afterward.
Tonight for dinner, we just got sandwiches from a nearby shop, then decided we were up for going for a short walk just to have a reason to stay awake longer. This was one thing I had been concerned about beforehand — I was looking forward to visiting all the towns and cities that the trail would bring us to, and I hoped that our hiking wouldn’t wear us out so much that we couldn’t enjoy walking around the towns. Of course our mileage today was less than it would be later, but we had time to work up to that. Tonight, we wandered down to a park overlooking the Duoro River, with great views of two of the bridges and the South shore. We sat and watched boats go by, then decided to make a loop back to our hotel. On our way, we passed by another beautiful church covered in the blue and white ceramic tiles, the Igreja de Santo Ildefonso. We ended our walk by stopping by a gelato shop down the street from our hotel, La Copa. A great reward for all our walking today!
