PORTUGAL

A return visit to the surf-battered Costa Vicentina throws up memories of a formative solo journey on foot, when freedom was more easily found

- CATRINA DAVIES

My boyfriend and I are in sleeping bags on the tiled floor of a disused swimming pool, counting shooting stars and drinking Vinho do Alentejo from a plastic water bottle, which we filled up in a bar for €2 (£1.72). The pool is in an overgrown garden — one of many picturesque ruins along the Rota Vicentina, a long-distance hiking trail connecting Santiago do Cacém, two hours south of Lisbon, to Cabo de São Vicente, outside Sagres.

Fifteen years ago, when I was 26, I busked here from Nordkapp in Norway. Twenty thousand miles, from one end of Europe to the other, it was the adventure that inspired my first book, The Ribbons are for Fearlessness. I spent a month unwinding at Praia do Amado (‘beach of the beloved’), near Carrapateira. There were several of us there living in vans, from all over Europe. I surfed so much my eyes burnt. I’d never experienced such waves, sunshine and simplicity.

Protected by the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina, the Rota Vicentina takes in Southern Europe’s last wild coast — miles of raw, west-facing, sandy beaches, much of it only accessible via dirt tracks with four-wheel-drive vehicles.