Posts Tagged ‘camino portugues’

Stage 4: Santarém to Golegã 31.2km

After a rest day spent wandering round Santarém and sitting in the Porta do sol park lazily reading, gazing over the river Tejo below and watching tour groups we started with fresh legs. The route took us out of Santarém through the Porta do Sol park through the Porta do São Tiago, an old gate in the city walls, and down through woods as the sun peeked over the horizon.

The river targus

Dawn over the Tejo

We took a slight detour to the train station and sure enough, the cafe was open so we had an early breakfast. After breakfast it was more vineyards and tomato fields and then corn fields. At about 11 we passed Vale da Figueira and had a coke stop. The village was gearing up for a fiesta, bunting all over, and it was decidedly picturesque, all the buildings pristine white against the deep blue sky.

As ever, the heat rose steadily. Mr B talked about heading towards a small copse and we fixed on that idea, planning to stop there for lunch under some trees. Unfortunately said copse continually failed to materialise, being instead repeated instances of stands of straggly trees offering no shade.

Liz on farm tracks

Liz bought a new hat in Santarém, it's a good hat...

Our new legs were beginning to feel like old legs (after 20km) and we saw a large olive tree at the side of the road and thought sod it, thermarests out and cake, biscuits and melon for lunch followed by a short siesta.

john under the irrigation

Unavoidable showers... I don't think they were doing pesticides...

Of course, 800m down the road we found not the copse but the next village, Azinhaga. This is where José Saramago was born, it’s tiny. We had ideas of stopping at the Casa Azinhaga (the swimming pool was big draw) but no one answered the door so we consoled ourselves by drinking lots of water from the fountain next to an unsettlingly oversized statue of Saramago in the village square (more of a triangle really, but shade and a drinking fountain are not to be sneezed at).

john and josé saramago

Faintly disturbed by the big José Saramago...

Then all that was left was the trudge along the side of the road into Golegã (the ã means that the a sounds like the a in cat, not the a in about). We succumbed to the heat and had another break in the shade, when a bend in the road meant that the shadow of the trees fell on a suitable place to sit. As we got up to do the last few kilometres Liz said, look, another pilgrim. Sure enough, behind us was a lone walker. Takashi is a French horn player in the Basel symphony orchestra.

The distraction of someone new to talk to made the last few kilometres easier, we got to Golegã and started thinking about where to stay. Golegã is a sleepy town except for two weeks in november when it’s the centre of the portuguese equestrian world. All the street signs and many of the shops have suitably horse themed signage.

We decided on the fire station for accommodation. Between Lisbon and Porto there are no dedicated pilgrim hostels (where you can usually stay for pennies, or free, or a donation). Instead you can ask for a bed, or a mattress on the floor at the Bombeiros Voluntários (the volunteer firefighters). Liz, being a fireman’s daughter, was all for this. Takashi thought it was good plan too. We followed the signs to the fire station and asked if there was a place to stay. A very tall fireman commanded us to wait. Five minutes later he led us to a big hall (why do fire stations need ballrooms?) filled with decorations and bunting in various states of preparation. The fireman explained (in slow Portuguese, which we could understand okay) that they were getting ready for a fiesta. He apologised for the mess and pointed us to a stack of mattresses.

john in the Golegã fire station

All you really need for a good night's rest... a mattress and a roomful of bunting

liz saluting

Liz showing solidarity befitting a fireman's daughter...

After a shower and a short lie down we started thinking about food. The fireman pointed us to the place to eat. I asked what was good, locally. He thought for a second and said, meat. At the restaurant an older chap that Takashi had been talking to earlier decided to help us decoding the menu, Takashi speaks no Portuguese, and very little Spanish… our Spanish helps us to understand but speaking is rather different. Anyway, Roberto, the older chap, joined us for dinner, insisting that we have a good wine, of his choice… and it was a fantastic local Almeirim white. Liz had grilled local freshwater fish, I had stewed lamb (on the waiter’s suggestion), Takashi went for steak. During dinner Roberto was like the Portugal marketing board, suggesting, or rather stating without allowing for dissenting opinions, that Portugal had the best of everything. Even ham? we said. Well, he said, the ham may be spanish, but the pigs are portuguese. A fine meal.

liz, takashi, john and roberto

Satisfied pilgrims and the Portuguese marketing board's most vocal representative.

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Stage 3: Azambuja to Santarém 32.3km

The early morning had been so nice the day before that we decided to do it again, up and out by 6:20. The downside of this is that the cafes in the town were all shut but we consulted Mr Brierley (or at least his guide book) and he said that 5km away there was an aerodrome with a cafe. We wandered past fields full of tomatoes in various states of ripeness, being passed occasionally by cars and vans full of the people who would be picking them pretty soon. The flaw in our plan became apparent when we reached the aerodrome to find it completely shut. So, plan B, keep walking until we hit Reguengo and breakfast there. No problem, it was still cool and the walking was easy.

john walking in the early morning

Nice and cool now, won't stay that way though

Reguengo is on the flood plain of the Rio Tejo. We hadn’t actually seen the river but according to the guidebook we were on its flood plains and it did flood with some regularity. This became apparent as we reached the tiny town. All of the houses, which were lining the one road, faced a four metre high dyke/levee/flood barrier. On the other side of this there were trees and fields and a park… way off in the distance, the river.We fell into the bar and ordered coffee and pastries. It was an old looking place, metallic bar, old coffee machine, ubiquitous TV high in the corner. The two barmen looked like father and son, the son looked in his sixties. We were subjected to curious looks but as we left a couple of Bem viagem’s were said.

John on the flood barrier in Valada

The river is on the right, they say.

We walked past the brightly painted single story buildings and followed the flood barrier. Soon enough we entered another town, so we had second breakfast, which is allowed. The bar in this place was newer and busier. Liz headed off to look for some food for lunch (Mr B having warned us that there was a longish stretch with no shops or bars) while I sat on top of the flood barrier and adjusted the compeed on my feet (I blame the heat, and the fact that my feet are rubbish). At 11 we passed the last cafe until our destination so we stopped in and had a beer and some bacalao croquettes (they were like little dense cotton balls of coddy goodness). As we were dawdling over the beer, contemplating a second (it was hot), we chatted for a while with a guy from South Africa who lived close by.

Beer and croquettes

We're in the shade, we have beer and bacalao, do we have to move?

Mr B said we left the asphalt and entered some “delightful sand tracks”. That’s probably true, if your definition of delightful is:- blisteringly hot, dusty and seemingly endless. We soon started looking for likely shady spots for a spot of lunch and a siesta. Eventually we found a stand of trees at the side of a field of tomatoes and settled on our thermarests. A couple of hours out of the sun.

liz with her shade

Parasol...

john sleeping in the shade

siesta

We slowed down after lunch, Santarém, our destination, came into view but it’s on the top of a hill and it was a long way off. We had another couple of rests when we found shade but there was precious little of it. The tomatoes gave way to vines and we passed under the A13, glad to be back on tarmac. It was still a good 4km uphill to Santarém, Liz was flagging so we were not going to break any speed records. As we got to the town we passed a bar and gratefully chugged an ice-cold coke.

john and the mutant

Mutant tomato provides diversion on the "delightful" sand tracks

The tourist information pointed us to a pensão (there were only two left in the town). After a bath (there was a bathtub, yay!) we went out for a shuffle around. It seemed deserted, or at least very quiet. There was a restaurant close to the hotel so we went there for their €7.50 menu. The waiter was very friendly, the food was simple grilled/barbecued fare, the wine was from the local Leziria vineyards… the following day was a day off… lovely.

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Stage 2: Verdelha de Baixo to Azambuja 32.2km

Given the heat from the day before (and the fact that we’d fallen asleep at about 10pm, so very rock and, indeed, roll) we were up at 6:30 and on our way by ten to seven.

John in front of the hotel

I'm thinking about the breakfast we're going to have soon

We retraced our steps and rejoined the camino, crossing over the railway line through a station, beyond which was an open cafe. So, breakfast then. As I mentioned bars/cafes seem to be primarily cake shops. Liz came out with a ham and cheese filled danish and a couple of pasteis de nata (basically custard tarts, but really really custardy and rather good).

pasteis de nata

A healthy breakfast is the basis of a good day

Suitably refuelled, we set off. The guidebook (John Brierley’s excellent Camino Portugués) had warned us that today would be a bit industrial and for the next couple of hours we were on the hard shoulder of the N10. We took a detour in Alhandra to avoid the traffic and we wound up on a riverside path that seemed pretty popular. That took us to Vilafranca de Xira where we admired the bullring and the tiles and the general impression that all of the buildings looked very similar to the ones we were familiar with in the non-Buenos Aires parts of Argentina. We popped into the (tiled of course) market and picked up a couple of bits to eat for later then paused in the main square.

Tiled market in Vilafranca de Xira

Did you get the tiles in?

The next couple of hours were similarly industrial, the instructions included a Lidl as a waypoint and we turned down the back of a series of warehouses and industrial buildings along which ran a stinking ditch. Very pleasant. The temperature rose steadily, hats and suncream obligatory. We pushed on to a bar in Castanheira do Ribatejo arriving at around 11:30. Some of the workers from the nearby factories came in as we were having a cold beer and some crisps (it was a temptation to do an Ice-cold-in-alex on it but we resisted, slaking our thirst with water first). People seemed to eat much earlier here than in Spain but even for our English sensibilities it seemed a little early so we decided to carry on. The industrial areas disappeared and were replaced by fields of tomatoes. We kept being passed by lorries full of them.

We walked into Vila Nova da Rainha ready for food, although it took a few minutes searching to find a cafe which looked promising. The first one we saw had one old guy sitting outside looking about as welcoming as cholera. Fortunately down a side road Liz spotted a cafe which looked much more promising. Unfortunately it was full but our obvious desperation for food led the waitress to asking a couple on a table for four if we could join them. They were also pilgrims, but heading for Fatima (on the same route until the following day). We chatted and ate (I think what we had was called Jardineira… basically stew). The girl was American, the guy Italian, both living in Paris. They had done the camino Portugués from Porto to Santiago the year before. After a pleasant lunch we parted, our plan was to have an hour or two’s rest in the shade in a white tiled park we had passed a few hundred metres before, they were going to continue.

Liz resting in the shade

"Thermarests are just fantastic" – Liz

The last seven kilometres were a bit tough, along the N3 being passed by tomato laden lorries. The heat hadn’t really started dissipating yet so when we passed a garage and Liz spotted the all important Nestle sign we stopped for an ice lolly, dawdling.

tomatoes

I wonder where all those lorries with tomatoes go? Wait, do you smell spaghetti sauce?

We got to Azambuja at around six. It took half an hour of wandering and asking directions (and finding one pensão shut) before we found our place to sleep. It was above a cafe and there were three old chaps outside sitting around a table. As soon as he saw us, one of them stood up and rung the bell of the residencial (like a pensão but, um spelled differently). There was no response, our faces must have fallen because he basically said, no problem, wait here, I’ll be back in a moment. He toddled off across the street and came back with the keys, let us in (again no messing about with registering or passports) and took our money for the room.

After a shower we went for a stroll, okay more of a hobble/shuffle along the cobbles… pausing at a pharmacy to pick up some compeed. We ate at the cafe under the residencial, the cafe owner recommended the green bean soup so we had that and then some fish and rice and cold white wine. The cafe closed at 9. Once again we were asleep by 10.

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Stage 1: Lisbon to Verdelha de Baixo 32.4km

Breakfast was included in the Pensão San João so we wandered up to the cathedral and collared a guy walking his kid to nursery to take a photo of us.

john and liz in fron of Lisbon Cathedral

Liz: "I hope he didn't get all the drunks in the doorway in the shot"

Then back down to the restaurant behind the hostel for breakfast and then down through the narrow streets of old Lisbon following the yellow arrows at the base of the corners of buildings… or as Liz put it, just at dog-pissing height. The arrows led us through the Alfama and Graça districts to the Fado Museum. After that it was less touristy and the tiles became more cracked, the facades more crumbly, the cobbles less even and the pavements narrower. Until we reached the expo site, where everything was much newer and shinier. We stopped for an orange juice (it was 10k after all) and contemplated the Torre Vasco de Gama and the 17km long bridge just beyond.

torre vasco de gama

A bit of a contrast to old Lisbon

Before long we were away from buildings and walking up a (rather smelly) river valley with planes going overhead every five minutes low enough to see people waving (okay, I might be exaggerating a little). It was hot. Which was not really a surprise, hot? In Portugal in August? Really? But it wasn’t suffocating, there was a breeze and we were heading for lunch. The guide book said that there was a place for lunch in a village called Granja a few hundred metres from the camino. so when we passed the small narrow bridge we crossed it and went to find food. The shady terrace was full, the inside less so. We made the usual internationally recognised signs for “we’d like to eat” and “can we sit here?” and the young waitress reeled off a list of what was on offer. I heard the word Bife so I plumped for that. We wanted cold white wine but there was none in the fridge so cold draught sangria had to do. It was so hot that we had to restrain ourselves from downing it in one. Beef and chips (and rice… chips and rice on the same plate, there’s something not quite right there) and salad and an hour’s rest and we were ready to brave the heat again.

liz and a fatima bollard

So I guess we go that way then?

We walked through cornfields and bamboo, I picked up a nice little piece which was to be my stick for the camino. It got hotter, and we stopped in the shade of a bar for a cool drink. Only six more kilometres, but they got harder as the heat persisted and our pace slowed a bit. Accommodation was a kilometre’s detour from the camino in Verdelha de Baixo. It was the Restaurant Afaia, which also had rooms. We stumbled in and maybe we scared the barmaid because she just handed over the keys and didn’t bother with passports or registration or names… Shower and rest, then down for dinner where surprisingly, the restaurant was almost full. Then we realised Benfica were playing and 99% of the patrons were men. It was only 7:30, we’re used to Spanish dining, which is rather later. We had a plate of calamares and rice, a bit of white wine and watched the men watching Benfica. Afterwards we fell into bed and were asleep pretty much as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

john in bamboo

Some of this bamboo stuff might make a good walking stick

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Pre-Camino (part 0.5)

After a night’s limited sleep on the floor in the airport in Madrid (my word but these Spanish can talk… and talk… and talk. and play football in the airport at 4am) and a quick easyjet flight, we found ourselves in Lisbon. We dropped our bags in the hostel/hotel/pensão we would be staying in that night and went for a wander. It was the first time in Portugal for both of us and we were both impressed. The old quarter of Lisbon is picturesque and well worth strolling around. In the afternoon we took one of the hop-on, hop-off bus tours, seeing as we were going to be walking around a fair bit the next few days.

the santa justa lift

I dunno Mister Eiffel, I think it could be more elaborate

Portuguese has always sounded like Russian to me, with lots of zh sounds. We were able to read pretty much everything and understand it but the minute people started talking it was a different matter. An unaccented a sounds like the a in acceptable (either one), the e disappears and the s, z and y (and rr and occasionally the r) all sound like the g in edge. Imagine Sean Connery speaking spanish with a russian accent… (shpeedboat).

liz eating olives

I'm not sure olives constitute carbo-loading

We stopped in bars, which are really cake shops masquerading as bars/cafes, had something traditional for lunch (feiojada… a bean stew), wandered a bit more, avoided the restaurant hawkers in the tourist heavy hotspots, goggled at the trams and Eiffel-style elevator to the barrio alto and generally did the touristy stuff until dark. The real walking wouldn’t begin until the following day.

a cafe in lisbon

Eat here please, we have very good menu, very good price, eat here please...

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Pre-camino (Part 0)

This afternoon we’re going  to catch a bus for Madrid. After arriving at the airport and catching a few hours sleep, we’ll be on a plane heading for Lisbon. We’ve got a day for pootling around the city then it’s North on foot following the Camino de Santiago. We have no accommodation beyond the first night, no fixed plans on where we’ll reach, not much more than this really:

This is what I'll be taking, plus the clothes I'm wearing.

Liz has a similarly lightweight rucksack packed.

There will be a full travelogue if when we get back.

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