Camino de Portuguese Day 3: Vila do Conde to Rates
Day 3 in Porto, Portugal | Hiking the Camino de Portuguese from Vila do Conde to Rates | May 2026
On our third day in Porto and section hiking the Camino de Portuguese, we had a few complications thrown into our plans that we needed to work around. The main one was that it was now the weekend, which meant less buses would be operating. We had looked ahead at the different sections we planned to walk each day, and found that we could manage most of our plans, however the one line that would be our limiting factor was the 3004 bus that passed through the town of Rates. It seemed to not operate at all on Sunday, and had limited options otherwise. Rates was one of the only towns along the route we were planning to take in order to cross from the Coastal trail to the Central Trail, from Vila do Conde to Barcelos. It was far too long to walk it in a day, and Rates was the only town that had public transport that would go back to the metro.
Our solution to this was to switch around which days we would hike each section. Since we couldn’t travel to or from Rates on Sunday, we decided to walk from Vila do Conde to Rates on Saturday, and Rates to Barcelos on Monday, and on Sunday we would walk our last section on the coast from Angeiras to Vila da Conde since the buses and metros still operated consistently in that area on Sunday. I decided to keep the posts on this site chronological to how things happened on our trip rather than in order of how the hike goes, so sorry for any confusion!
On Saturday morning, we enjoyed our breakfast and then walked to the metro station, and took the red line to Vila da Conde. We knew this section of trail wouldn’t be as well marked or well traveled by other pilgrims, so we relied heavily on an app for navigation. The beginning of the trail started by following a Roman style aqueduct, and we spent our time following it wondering how old it was and how it was used. Turns out it wasn’t quite as old as the Romans, only being completed in 1714 to supply water to the Convent in Vila do Conde, but it was still a first for us. As we worked our way along its length, we watched the arches decrease in height from 30+ feet to only 10 feet. We had to work our way through the neighborhoods of Vila da Conde, cross a highway, and as we made our way into the farmland and hills, the homes began to thin out.
The further we got from the town, the more out of place and alone we felt out there. Not that we weren’t enjoying it, we just knew that this probably wasn’t a typical experience on the Camino. One thing we really enjoyed was seeing all the beautiful yards. There weren’t any big grassy lawns like what you see in the US, the outdoor space was much smaller, but seemed very thoughtfully planned out and intentional. There was space to sit outside, decor, and lots of different flowers. We looked up how to say “I like your garden” in Portuguese in case we saw anyone outside of their home. There were a lot of flowers in bloom that I hadn’t seen since Hawaii! We were also a little mind blown by how most of the roads we were walking were made up of cobblestones. Where did it all come from?!
In the village of Beiriz, we stopped at a pretty little church to take a short break. After that, we continued through the village until we ended up walking through farmland, and then found ourselves on a forest road. The route we took crossed over the far Eastern end of a short little mountain, and we were astounded to find, of all things, Eucalyptus trees. It wasn’t until we emerged from the woods and met up with a road South of Rates that we saw our first Camino sign, showing we were still on the right track.
We arrived in Rates about 45 minutes before the bus was scheduled to come through. It had been another 8 mile day on the trail. When we arrived, we wandered around the historic church grounds, checking out the church and other buildings before finally sitting down by the bus stop for some snacks. The church here (Igreja Românica de Rates) is one of the oldest extant Romanesque churches in Portugal, having been built around the 11th century, though the buildings have been on the site even longer. Unfortunately the museum here was closed for a long lunch, so we weren’t able to visit or get a stamp.
The time that the bus was supposed to arrive came and went, and after 10-15 minutes we started to get nervous that maybe, even with our thorough research, we might have missed something and our plans would fall through. We knew of another bus stop about 10 minutes away, and just as we started wandering in that direction, our bus finally appeared, coming over the hill, and we rushed back to our first stop to jump on.
It was a smooth ride back to Vila do Conde, and we enjoyed taking in all the scenery of rural Portugal. Back in Vila do Conde, we found our way back to the metro station, and took that back to Porto. That evening, we decided it was time to try a Portuguese dish we had been seeing everywhere: the Francesinha. It wasn’t hard to find a place that served it, we just wandered around a touristy area until we found a restaurant that had seating available and placed our order. The Francesinha consists of a sandwich made with thick Texas toast type bread, and the one we had was filled with different types of meat, ham and sausage mostly. It was topped with a friend egg, and placed on a plate on top of fries covered in gravy. So a very heavy dish, we were very glad that we had decided to split it because it would have been way too much for one person! It was honestly pretty good, the gravy and fries part reminded us of poutine in Canada. We later learned from a local that it’s even better to get a vegetarian version. Honestly the best part to come out of this meal though was that it was the first time we tried the local Portuguese beer, Super Bock. Because when they charge for water, and a beer draft is only 30 cents more than water (and is cheaper than everything else on the menu), why not have the beer?!
After our very filling dinner, we went on another long walk to ‘walk off’ the heaviness of the meal, and to make room for more gelato. We were starting to become more familiar with downtown Porto, and were proud of ourselves for no longer needing to look at a map to find our way back to our hotel.
