Rubiães to Tui
Crossing
- Distance
- 20 km
- Climb
- 180 m up, 295 m down
- Ground
- 10 to 180 m
- Time
- 5 to 7 hours
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Underfoot
- forest, dirt, paved, urban
Where this day sits on the Camino Portugués
Above, the highest and lowest ground of each of its 11 stages. Below, the word each day is given.
From open-pilgrimages: each stage's highest and lowest ground and its interior theme.
The day
The border day. You descend from Rubiães through forest and farmland into Valença, a fortified Portuguese town built to face Spain with its star-shaped walls. Then the Ponte Internacional — a wrought-iron lattice bridge built in the 1880s and inaugurated in 1886. The midpoint of the bridge is the border. One step Portuguese, the next Spanish. On the far side, Tui cathedral rises directly from the riverbank, stone walls glowing in afternoon light. The air changes. The language changes. The shell markers that said Bom Caminho in Portugal now say Buen Camino in Galicia. Something about crossing a river on foot, out of one country and into another, is older than the maps.
What pilgrims often meet here
- Walking the walls of Valença and looking out at Spain across the river
- Photographs at the midpoint of the Ponte Internacional
- The moment of crossing the border on foot — quieter than expected
- Climbing up to Tui cathedral and touching its stone walls
When has a border in your life turned out to be smaller than you thought it would be?
The ground
Descent through Valença to the Miño river, then across the Ponte Internacional into Tui, Spain. Valença's 17th-century star fortress is worth the brief detour inside the walls.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in Rubiães depend on the day you walk.
Walk it with Pilgrim
Pilgrim doesn't carry the Camino Portugués as a route yet. You can still walk it with the app in Wander mode, speaking what arises and keeping it on your phone.