Portugal to Spain Caminha - A Guarda

Vila Praia do Ancora is a quaint little seaside village that is split into two halves with the train line running through the middle. It's a fishing and retirement village with an old world pace of life.

The central plaza is glorious, the spring petunias decorating the church entranceway were a riot of colour, spring has well and truly sprung there.

Our next steps had us headed to Caminha where we would leave Portugal and enter Spain.

The glazed exterior house tiles as you walk into Caminha are so different from anything we have back home, it's a unique  style particular to this region.

The national triathlon was on in Caminha and they couldn't have had worse weather, it was chucking it down. The town was full of athletes, supporters, sponsors, guys and girls in wetsuits for the swim, racks of carbon fibre space age looking road bikes and hardy supporters and pilgrims with rain ponchos a plenty.

We managed to navigate the road closures and eager security staff protecting the roads for the bike stage and get across to the river bank where the boats left to take people across the River Minho to Spain.

We  went across on a little electric ferry with other pilgrims all looking like us, like large blobs of plastic with the rain ponchos covering us and our packs. There's no room for vanity in a rain poncho :)

The track to A Guarda wasn't too sludgy thank goodness. It was very wet but the raindrops had the magical effect of crating a lush green fairyland with all the foliage glistening.

Lovely public sculptures as we found our way to the port area in A Guarda.

Then, just like that, the sun came out, hurrah! Time to de-poncho and appear human again and dry out.