Hiking Fishermans Trail Portugal and Visiting Porto

We entered Portugal with our car from south east border to Spain. After having a break in Faro,  we headed to Lagos for one night stay before starting our hiking adventure on Fisherman’s Trail - famous hike in Portugal. Although the trail starts in Lagos,  we did not want to start from there since we believed starting from Praia de Luz offered better views. The next day, we packed our backpacks with all camping gears, parked our car on a safe location and headed to Praia de Luz. On this trail, everyday you walk 15-23km on mostly sand dunes (quite challenging), visit amazing beaches by the ocean and at the end of each day, the route takes you to a village for accommodation. It is a very well marked trail, hard to get lost. Since we wanted to base ourselves in nature and had our camping gears with,  we preferred to camp mostly on the amazing hidden beaches instead of lodging in hostels. Starting from Luz,  the south west corner of Portugal has beautiful secluded  beaches without much tourists. Our favourites have been Praia de Figueira and Praia das Furnas. Camping on the beaches at night by the ocean is highly recommended. At night, you feel yourself on another planet with the strong waves hitting the beach, amazing sound of it and a sky full of stars. We could see milky way everyday. It was absolutely a beautiful journey. After couple of days hiking and camping, we were giving a night break in a hostel to enjoy a comfortable bed and a hot shower. We believe it was a good mix. After 7 days of hiking, we ended up in Zambujeira Do Mar which is a very touristic coastal town and we felt like we could end our hike here. It has been a hike which will always be remembered with a big smile. 

I have been to Porto 2 times before and it is a destination I would love to visit again. The third time was with my boyfriend after hiking the Fisherman’s trail. After the hike, we went back to Luz to pick our car and drove to Porto. We based ourselves in Rosalma Hostel in the center which is a very clean hostel at a perfect location for short visits. For the first day, we just walked around in the beautiful historic center whole day and the second day we went to Matosinhos which is located on the northwest corner of Porto, 30 min drive from Porto Center. It is a place to go if you are craving for fresh seafood. I always pay a visit to Matosinhos each time I am in Porto. You may easily spend the whole day in Matosinhos enjoying the beach and super delicious seafood. For our third day, we crossed the bridge and a had a walk in Gaia which is a hub for the port wine industry.