Day 3 - Arcos to Barcelinhos - 19.3km

Good Morning Pilgrims.

Well the street party last night was not the most happening place in Portugal. The 30 people there seemed to generally be enjoying themselves though. We had a good pizza and a beer and enjoyed the "hoedown" music!

Today is our first day on the central camino and it feels a bit more camino. The towns we pass through are smaller, there are a lot more yellow arrows and pilgrim signs.

Having left the big poncho in our bag of unnecessaries yesterday (the weather forecast only showed occasional showers over the next week), it was chucking it down this morning. Luckily tinas pack cover and rain jacket held up as hoped, though we questioned a few times if a poncho would be better! Thats called sods law!!

The route follows a lot of road with a long section walking on the actual road with no hard shoulder and was pretty unenjoyable.

We had a km or two in the woods then a long old stretch on cobbled streets.

It was pretty unremarkable except for a lovely pilgrim rest area with a giant rooster statue a national icon, famous in the area for legend tells of a rooster that crowed to prove the innocence of a pilgrim wrongly condemned to hang.

We made excellent time, only stopping briefly for 2 coffees! The blog today was looking bleak!!

We arrived in the accomodation in Barcelinhos at 15.30 ish and started organising our laundry when the owner knocked and said hello, telling us that at 4pm the procession starts in the next town around a 10 minute walk away.

Turns out it is the festival des cruces - a great big 4 day festival with a big procession, handmade flower murals in the church, a big stage and street party with street food and fireworks displays - the last one being 11pm tonight and called the fire of the pilgrimage!!

We watched the procession and had a walk round the town, seeing the flower murals. We had to head back as we need clean cloths tomorrow so we will get the laundry done and everything organised before we go up to join the revelry and maybe the fireworks - if we can survive that long.

See you all in the morning!

**late night edit**

We found a nice bbq place where we had bbq belly pork and chicken with salads and sides for 12euro each. Fantastic.

The festival was huge with 100s of stalls. We enjoyed an hour toe tapping (and calf stretching!!) to Quinta Do Bill (check them out on spotify) before an epic firework display!

Ready for a good sleep now!!