Best time of year for the Portuguese Camino?
I walked the Caminho Portugese Coastal route first and a year later the Central. Both in October. At the big Albergue in Porto, I saw two young Italians and it was pouring cats and dogs before we all started our caminho. I smiled and asked:
“Where are you going? Coastal or Central?
One replied: “We don’t know yet, we can’t decide, where are you going?”
“I am walking the Central route. If I were you, do the Central. It is raining and it will not stop. Last year I walked the Coastal route in the pouring rain. There was no place to shelter, and sometimes it was a challenge with the hard wind, quite close to the rough ocean.”
“Okay”, Mario said, “We follow you”.
Best bet for a cool and dry caminho:
March-April-June-July or September-October
After a few days Mario cried out:
“Why, why Ay Lin?! It doesn’t stop raining? I read in my book that October is a perfect time to walk the Caminho Portuguese. Why would my book say something like this? The rain is horrible,”
Totally wet I said: ” This is Portugal when the rain season starts. It starts in October-November. It doesn’t stop for weeks”.
If you like to pick the best time of the year for your caminho, you don’t have a lot of choice. Did you know that it also rains in Portugal? A lot. The rain season typically start mid October. All rain falls down. Normally there is no rain from May to September and October-November all comes down. It could be like this during the months until April. But… if it doesn’t rain, the sun is out, and it is beautiful to walk. My friend came to us in November and he walked his caminho in the sun!
We live here for five years now. We saw that it rains for 3 months in the October- April. This also means 3-4 months it is sunny. But when this rain falls? It is a question mark. In the North (Porto and up), there is more rain than these 3 months, and in the South (Lisbon to Algarve) it is warmer and there with less rain.
Be prerared for the strong sun: July-August
Portugal is very hot in August. It starts end of July already. If you can stand the heat and like to wake up early (3:30-5:00) to avoid the heat, you walk in August. Just be prepared. Take at least 2 liters of water with you. Put sugar or salt in it. Wear a cap when the sun comes out. Be sure you are covered.
I walked end of July in the Algarve the Fishermen’s trail. That one day that it was above 30 degrees. Willeke, my friend from The Netherlands, almost collapsed around 13:00. We left too late around 7:20. When we were an hour earlier, we were in time. We would be at our destination before the real heat.
When we walked in August where it was above 30 degrees the whole caminho, our friend was feeling sick because he drank a liter of cold yoghurt drink and we had to walk up to the castle in the burning heat. This was also when we started around 7:20. The days after we left at 6:00, and we were good. We were drinking water all day, that is the best!
And in Nov until Feb?
There is a soft climate in Portugal. If there is no rain, we walk in our long sleeves or T-shirts! We even celebrate Christmas outside with a sweater. It is perfectly fine to walk year round in wintertime.
Just bring all your rain gear, and warm clothes. The houses in Portugal are made for summer. It is cold inside, and the houses normally don’t have central heating, except a fire place. Instead there are electrical radiators, which could warm the place. But if you are wet, it feels you stay wet, your clothes will still be wet, and even the bedsheets could feel like they are wet. Because of this humidity, it feels cold too. So you are cold to the bone, if you walk when it rains.
My Secret… and Tip
My secret for a drier caminho
Mario and Luigi and the other pilgrims didn’t understand why I was ‘relatively’ dry, and happy walker?!
Well my secret was Willeke. When we walked the Coastal route, she refused to walk in pouring rain. She said: “We just wait until it is over. It is no fun being totally wet. Of course we got wet because there were no places to find shelter, and our shoes were wet too. Still wet the following day. But on my Central path, I sheltered every time, and I just waited until it was not pouring anymore.
Mario told me later that he thought I was injured or something because I just stood under the viaduct doing nothing. I was just waiting for the rain to stop a bit. All pilgrims I saw that week were tough: They walked no matter what!
Ay Lin's Caminho Tip
Dry shoes
When you are totally soaked. Arrange some newspapers in the albergue or cafe. Dry your shoes with these: Put them in and refresh it three times before going to bed. Dry shoes in the morning: Guaranteed!
For better preparation, research this caminho forum! A lot of experienced pilgrims answer all your questions!
I use the website Gronze for researching the route, the distances and the detailed information the journalists give us.
