Porto

Yesterday I arrived in Porto after a rather long day of trains planes and automobiles. Somehow I managed to work out the metro system at the Porto airport and found my hotel with not to much difficulty. Its not the Ritz but its central to everthing and has AC, an ensuite and a TV so cant complain too much. Actually for a central city hotel it was surprisingly quiet at night and so was able to have a good nights sleep.
This morning I went in search of my credencial which I thought was going to be a mission in itself. I walked to the cathedral and lo and behold outside was 4 people wearing packs and holding walking poles. " Are you guys walking the camino portugues?" I asked. Cee, Cee they replied. They are from Spain if you hadnt guessed. They had just come out of the cathedral having got ther credential inside. A credential by the way is what you need to have in order to stay at the accommodation places on the way. It is a little booklet thing which gets stamped at either the walkers hostels or churches and even bars and cafes.
So I walked in and asked at the desk and as if by magic the guy handed one over. I thought it was going to be a bit of a time consuming excercise tracking one down but how easy was that. At that stage it was only 9am and I was tempted to go back to my hotel, grab my pack and head off on the trail. Good thing I didnt as I decided instead to have a look around the city. I bought a ticket for a hop on, hop off bus and had a look around Porto. Porto is of course famous for its Port wine. I got off the bus at a wine cellar and had a short tour of the cellar or wine cave as they are called and sampled a few.
Tommorrow I am going to be heading away earlyish to begin the walk to Santiago De Compostala. I am catching the metro to to a place about 10km from the cathedral as the first part is mainly walking through the city on roads and I can not be bothered with that. The guys that I meet this morning were walking right from the start and I will probably catch up with them tomorrow.
The register of people that picked up their credential from the cathedral and are walking the camino over the last week or so numbers about 5-6 per day. Not many which is good as it wont be anywhere as near as busy as the Camino De Santiago. Having said that however others may have picked up their credential elswhere so there may be more. Time will tell and I should have a good idea of numbers by tomorrow night.