Water and Wine

No, I haven’t witnessed any miracles over here. Come to think of it maybe I have. My wife hasn’t killed me yet, so maybe that counts. I’ll submit it to the Pope when I get to Porto and see what he thinks. We stayed in the quaint, little town of Luso, home of the Luso mineral water company. What is unique about Luso are the public fountains in the center of town where people drive for miles to come fill jugs, pails, bottles with the water from the springs. (When I was traveling in Europe during my college days I was looking for someplace similar only with beer instead of water). The cars and lines for filling up were impressive. The area we are walking through to Porto is wine country. Wine from the Douro region has been our favorite. For around 7-8 euros you can get a great bottle of wine—I’m not exactly a connoisseur, but I haven’t found many good $7 bottle in the states.

The population of Portugal is about 10.3 million. The dog population in Portugal is about the same I believe. Every house has at least one dog. Every little town has dozens of dogs running, walking or laying in streets. The interesting thing is that none of the dogs look alike, which makes it easy for their owners to find them I suppose. Most seem to be a mixture of Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and Pepe le Peu. They love to bark when we walk by with our walking sticks. Several have followed us until they realized we weren’t going to feed them.

Portugal has a unique style of blue and white tile, which many houses, churches and businesses display on all or part of their structures. There is usually a painted tile of the Blessed Mother or St. Anthony (patron saint of Portugal) as part of the mosaic. We’ve also noticed very modern houses randomly built in the small towns we pass through. We’re told these homes are built by people who once lived there, moved away and became successful—vacation homes maybe.

As we move closer to Porto and the ocean we are starting our walk in fog and ending in blue sky and hot sun. Two days to Porto, a rest day and then the push to Santiago. This is the main street in Agueda (our departure today) where they are having a festival. Buen Camino!