Camino Portuguese Day 1
Lisbon - Póvoa de Santa Iria 21.42km; train to Tomar 120km
Finally D-day has arrived and we have set off on our Camino! Our journey was not without a little drama (I mean, have you met me?! 🤣) - we had no sooner set off for Lisbon Cathedral (our starting point), stopping off for breakfast at a cafe near the cathedral, when I discovered I had left my AirPods at the hotel. Oops!
So I had to back track (whilst Russell took one for the team and had an extra coffee and croissant and minded the packs!). This set us back a good 40 minutes or so but at least I realised it before we had gone too far down the track. And in my defence, I had gotten the ear buds out so as to listen to some music on the route but they had become obscured by the pillow so I didn’t see them when I checked. Lesson learned!
The first part of the walk was gruelling. The feet really take a pounding on the cobblestones which are just unrelenting! We were walking around the back streets of Lisbon and whilst it was lovely to see the houses and the tiled decorations, it was really nice when we finally got a glimpse of the River Tagus, as we approached the Aquarium. This also afforded us our first proper glimpse of the Vasco Da Gama bridge - the longest bridge on continental Europe at 12.3km (so glad we didn’t have to walk over that!).
The route then followed the Tagus river but we were still on concrete and cobblestones. Finally we reached the new boardwalk section, which was much kinder on the feet, but was in full sun for long periods with the exception of periodic slatted coverings (some of which are set up as bird hides- much to Russell’s delight - the wealth of birdlife in this section was astonishing). We saw pink flamingoes!!!🦩
Eventually we arrived at Póvoa de Santa Iria, which would normally be a good rest stop. However, because a certain someone decided to work until the end of term, we needed to cut some distance down as we are on a deadline to be in Porto to walk the Camino with family and friends. No problem - the next few days are all walking along highways (some of which are known to be dangerous for pilgrims) and industrial areas, so we made the decision to jump to light speed and catch the train to Tomar!
We will actually have a day of sightseeing there as it has a lot of Knights Templar history - we had always planned a rest day in Tomar so why should it matter if it’s only after day 1 🤣🤣!!
Bom caminho!!
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