The Christian Pilgrimage Routes — A Week That Changes You

The French Way gets the books and the films. The Portuguese Way gets the eucalyptus, the quiet, and the people who wanted a camino without the queue. I walked it in late September, Routes Compared, and by the second day I had stopped checking my phone entirely.

I · Why the Portuguese Way

The Portuguese Way is the second-most popular camino route after the French Way, and for good reason. It is greener, quieter, and far less commercial. You walk through Galician villages where the cafés still charge €1.20 for a coffee, past vineyards and cornfields and eucalyptus forests that smell like a spa. The infrastructure is excellent — yellow arrows every hundred metres, albergues spaced at sensible distances — but you will not spend your morning queuing for a stamp behind a tour bus.

The trade-off: fewer grand monuments. The French Way has cathedrals every thirty kilometres; the Portuguese Way has stone crosses, Roman bridges, and the occasional baroque church in a town of four hundred people. It is a humbler walk, and for me, a better one.

II · The Route Routes Compared, roughly 115 km

Five to six days, 18–22 km a day. Here is how it breaks down:

Day 1: Tui → O Porriño (18 km)

Cross the Minho river on the old bridge. Gentle climbing through industrial outskirts — the least beautiful day, but it earns you the rest. Stay at the municipal albergue.

Day 2: O Porriño → Redondela (16 km)

The route joins the Central Portuguese Way here. Wooded paths, Roman milestones. Redondela sits on a tidal inlet; eat pulpo at a taverna by the water.

Day 3: Redondela → Pontevedra (20 km)

The longest day. Arcade, with its famous oysters, is a lunch stop. Pontevedra is a beautiful old city with a pilgrims' square and genuine nightlife.

Day 4: Pontevedra → Caldas de Reis (21 km)

Rolling countryside, a long forest stretch, then the thermal springs at Caldas de Reis. Soak your feet in the public spa. It is free and it is medicine.

Day 5: Caldas de Reis → Padrón (19 km)

The hill before Padrón is the hardest climb of the week — short, steep, a reminder that Galicia is not flat. Padrón's peppers are famous for a reason.

Day 6: Padrón → Santiago (24 km)

The longest stage. The final approach through suburban Santiago is unglamorous. Start before dawn. You want to reach the Praza do Obradoiro with the morning still on it.

III · Practical Things

Packing. Seven kilos, not counting water. Two walking outfits, one for evening. A proper rain jacket — Galicia's rain comes sideways. Broken-in shoes half a size up, blister tape applied before you feel anything. Leave the guidebook; the yellow arrows are better.

Where to stay. Municipal albergues are cheap, first-come, and full of people you will keep meeting. Private albergues take bookings. In summer, book Pontevedra and Padrón ahead. Book directly with the properties — we do not sell beds.

Getting your Compostela. Buy a credencial in Tui. Collect two stamps a day for the last 100 km — cafés, churches, albergues. At the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago, present the credencial and state you walked for religious or spiritual reasons. Queues are longest between noon and four. Go early.

IV · When to Walk

The Camino Portuguese has two distinct seasons. May and June are warm, the route is crowded, and the albergues are full by midafternoon. September and October are the gold months — the Galician heat has broken, the grapes are being harvested in the Minho, and the light over the Atlantic at the end of each day's walk is the colour of warm bread. Winter walking is possible but a number of municipal refuges close between November and February, and the daylight runs out by five. Holy Week, particularly Semana Santa in Braga and the Cathedral of Santiago, is powerful but should be booked at least four months ahead. The Portuguese Way rewards the shoulder seasons most. The famous pilgrim mass at noon in Santiago is moving every day it is celebrated, but the cathedral is less crowded in the off-season and you can hear the botafumeiro swing without a tourist's phone in the way.