Day 27 – at Fafião

I’ve done quite a few kilometre of the GR50 in the last three weeks. It’s the Grand Route of Pineda-Geres and would be a tremendous long distance footpath to walk in its entirety, 190 kilometres in all.

It has its own website, https://www.walkingpenedageres.pt/en/grande-rota/.

Today I took on another few of its km, a particularly rewarding section north of Fafião, including a scramble / hands on descent to the Fafião river, much better done as an ascent, I add with hindsight..

But it began much more sedately, with a coffee in the village. It’s clearly a tourist venue, with some nice accommodations, but operates in its own right at this time of year, even in the season you get the feeling it would still be quiet place to visit.

It was a rugby afternoon, interrupted twice, but both welcome.

Another campervan arrived, and the guy came over to say hello. They were a couple from Finland, with a self-build only a year old, and on their first trip. They’re the second van I’ve met in the last few days, the English being the other, that have sold their house to live and work in their van, with both quoting the rise in household energy bills being part of the reason.

My second interruption was from one of the dogs guarding the huge horned cows, a puppy of those enormous hounds there are plenty of. I must confess that I don’t know the breed. It wanted to play of course, with Roja, though his patience for such games is practically non existent these days. He played for a couple of minutes, and after that it was just a case of the puppy running round him, and him growling.