31 January to Bristol Airport

First step on my journey was to Bristol airport where flights radiate out across Europe. My flight to Faro, in the Algarve, leaves early in the morning so I am staying the night at the Forge Guesthouse, within walking distance of the airport. Leaving is always difficult, the excitement is bounded with sadness at leaving loved ones, my joy at starting a new adventure is blended with sorrow at leaving my wife, and her sadness at leaving me for the next five weeks. It makes goodbyes difficult. This goodbye was especially miserable as the rain, darkness and fog encountered when she kindly drove me to the guesthouse made us tense, the satnav selecting a particularly obscure route through country lanes blocked by a too large bus. It must have had the same satnav.

Via Algarviana (GR13) in Portugal as part of E4 cross Europe Trail

Starting in September 2014 following early retirement, I have been walking the E4 cross Europe walk (report on my walk on E4), which is one of the ultra long distance trails created by the European Ramblers Association. The official E4 path starts in Tarifa at the very south of Spain, and the most southern point in mainland Europe, and ends in Cyprus. So far I have walked from Tarifa to Lake Constance in Switzerland in four 5 week sections (the longest I can manage without seeing my wife). However the next section in Austria and Germany is best not walked in winter, at least not for someone of my abilities, so I was looking for somewhere to walk in winter. I noticed that the Via Algarviana footpath in Portugal was pitching to be the new, more westerly start for the E4 (see Via Algarviana website), and this area of the Algarve, the mountains behind the more popular coast, sounded as if it would be very pleasant to walk in February (a lot more pleasant than the Pembrokeshire coast path in January from which I have recently returned and which was very wet and windy, albeit a good way to loose some Christmas fat).

After the Via Algarviana I wanted to link up with the start of the E4 in Tarifa. Due to the lack of places to cross the River Guadalquivir, this means first going from the end of the Via Algarviana at Alcoutim in Portugal to Seville (not that visiting the beautiful city of Seville is any hardship). From Seville my intention is to follow the Way of St James (the Via Augusta section of the Camino de Santiago) in the wrong direction towards Cadiz (see pilgrims route from Cadiz to Seville), and then follow the coast to Tarifa.