Tag Archives: Hiking

Day 18 – Albergaria-a-Velha to Oliveira de Azeméis: Nice to be walking again

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Monday 14 September 2026 – With just 20km to do today, and the temperature not forecast to go over 30°C until midday, an early start seemed to be a good way to get the best out of the walk. I set the alarm for 0500, but luckily woke up anyway at exactly 0500, as some technical hitch with my phone had rendered its alarm silent; it was doing its best, poor thing, but it was the other side of the bedroom and behind a curtain so I can’t blame it for not waking me. (Or, spookily, perhaps it did; perhaps my symbiosis with my phone is more powerful than I realise?)

Anyhoo…

I had expected to have some kind of faux-cheery interaction with one or more of the other guests of the place, but when we got down to the lounge at quarter to six, it was silent and everyone seemed to have taken their breakfasts already. So we ate what we fancied of our breakfast pack, left as promised, and were on the road at, oh goodness me, 0625. Being able to appreciate the dawn colours seems to be becoming a bit of a habit.

Before long, the road gave way to a track

and we carried on, past a Memorial to Nossa Senhora do Socorro

and on to another forestry track, where Eucalyptus once again figured strongly, although not, as far as we could tell, in a programmatic way.

The track led us eventually back on to the major N1 road at Albergaria’s new town, Albergaria-a-Nova, where we passed an albergue which gave us a useful status check on our walk.

So: we’re over half way there, then!

The N1 is not a rewarding road to walk on, as it features a lot of heavy traffic, but we trudged along, passing the occasional attractive tile work

(I hesitate to call it an azulejo, as it hasn’t much blue in it); an attractive modern church

at which Jane scored us another selo; a modern-looking lavodouro

and a place which said it was “from pilgrims for pilgrims”

but which was closed, so not much use for us pilgrims, then. For the last couple of these photos, we’d actually diverged from the N1 onto a parallel minor road. We thought we saw another misty morning scene

until the drifting smell told us that this was smoke from a fire, which, of course, we hoped was intentional. By this stage we’d done about 10km, i.e. half the day’s walking and so it was jolly well time for a coffee. There was a place back on the N1 so we cut back to it.

It was a bit transport caff-y, but we got a decent hot coffee and a chocolate salami each, which I hoped would boost my somewhat flagging energy levels (it seemed to work, by the way). Then we carried on along the N1 and rejoined the Caminho a bit further up, crossing the railway at a level crossing to do so, and then walking alongside the actual railway track for a while.

I have to say that I’m rather glad it’s a very, very minor rail route, as a passing train might have meant us making an undignified dive down the bank to avoid being flattened.

Most of the rest of the walk was on quiet roads: past an attractively decorated school in Curval;

seeing a very substantial mansion in the middle distance;

passing another, seemingly less well-used lavadouro;

and a distinctive church, the Igreja Matriz do Pinheiro da Bemposta.

Although we didn’t pass this church directly, we did walk through Pinheiro de Bemposta, which has some handsome buildings

and then reached a bridge crossing the N1.

The peregrina you can see on the bridge is actually the 86-year old Louise from Pennsylvania, who had started out very early this morning and was walking at her own steady pace. We had a quick chat with her as she rested in the outskirts of the old village of Bemposta. She would be walking a longer distance than us, a 30km stage to Arrifana; clearly made of sterner stuff than us.

The old village of Bemposta has a considerable history of which the village is proud; the handsome buildings in the short stretch of its main street are described in info boards which give a description of the distinctive characteristics of each of the buildings.

The 15th Century Casa de Bemposta

The ‘Paços do Concelho’ building used to be the headquarters of the administrative and judicial power, probably built in the 18th Century. I hasten to add that we bypassed the beer truck, even though it was open; a beer at 10am didn’t seem somehow right

The Casa do Arco. It looks disused, but houses a dwelling

The last photo is unidentified by info board, but I thought it was a handsome one.

Exiting Bemposta through the arch gave us a good view of the distant countryside

though actually a less uplifting one of the nearer landscape.

The rest of our walk was through various conurbations before got to our destination.  We went down through Besteiros, with more pointy roof features

some attractive tilework

and this handsome place

with its symbolic guard cat on the lych gate.

Our track took us back perilously close to the railway again,

and down a pleasant cobbled path

where we got our first view of Oliveira de Azeméis at the top of the hill we would eventually have to climb.

The track went over a small river. On the bridge was Senhor da Ponte, Our Lord of the Bridge.

We had to cross the railway again, via a very informal route

which was pretty much at the start of the final climb towards Oliveira de Azeméis. It was a 100m ascent in about 1.5km, so not desperately steep, but the weather was hot enough by now – around 30°C – that I for one was exceedingly glad when I finally tottered to the top. We then had a short walk through the town, which is a handsome place, nicely kept tidy, with some striking buildings

touches of prettification

and a generally refined air along the main street.

Fine houses such as those above were built at the end of the 19th century by former emigrants returning with new-found wealth from Brazil; they are known as casas dos brasileiros.

Our hotel, the Hotel Dighton,

had many things to recommend it, such as air-conditioning, a room they already had available for us and a restaurant that would serve lunch until 3pm. Our bags hadn’t yet arrived, but it was anyway lovely to be able to relax for a while before going for lunch. And it was a Nice Lunch; a Very Nice Lunch. It’s a very old school, quite posh restaurant, with proper service (they’d pour one’s wine for one, if one drank wine), linen napkins, 70s-tastic music, a splendid azulejo and a chef in charge of a great open-fire grill

who assiduously attended to his grill, fanning it to keep it Just So.

He produced a wonderful grouper steak for Jane and some very succulent lamb for me, and we really enjoyed it; for me, probably the best meal I’ve had so far in Portugal – and there have been some good ones.

After lunch (and the eventual arrival of our suitcases) we thought we’d take a short walk around the town. It has a huge variety of churches, but the Mother Church is a fine building

with an impressive azulejo-surrounded portal.

Inside

there is a very substantial Eucharistic Throne.

It’s slightly odd that we keep finding these thrones when they’re something that the Papacy banned centuries ago and which we’d thought were kept largely out of sight.

Near the church is a Roman momument,

the Marco Miliário da Milha XII (12th Mile Milestone), which marked Mile 12 of the ancient Roman military road that connected Coimbra to Gaia in eastern Portugal. It was originally erected between 23 AD and 24 AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, and was originally discovered in the late 18th century in the nearby parish of Ul.

Having taken a swift coffee (OK, and pastries) at a lovely confeitaria, we finished our walk by visiting the fountain at the bottom of our hotel’s street.

and then headed back to the hotel to rest and recharge for the next day.

Tomorrow’s destination is Malaposta (the opposite, we suppose of the Bemposta we visited today?) which is just 16km away – a relatively short walk on a day which is forecast to be a positively frigid 27°C. This means we can even indulge ourselves in a hotel breakfast, which should be a solid start to the day. I’ll report on it in due course.

 

 

Day 15 – Coimbra to Pedrulha: another decent day’s walking

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Friday 11 September 2026 – Our breakfast was Room Service, in the sense that Jane constructed a banana sandwich each for us from our foragings, and our travel kettle once again came in handy. This enabled another early start as we once again wanted to avoid the worst heat of the day. As we handed our bags over to be collected and transported later, the receptionist tried to persuade us to stay for the hotel breakfast which started at 7am, but we were more anxious to get on the road.

The road in question led us to the local equivalent of Spaghetti Junction, where we had to figure out how to carve a footpath through a major road intersection and significant roadworks,

but fortunately the traffic was light and so the couple of unofficial scamperings across major roads didn’t cause any accidents; and then we walked along what seemed like a recently created joint pavement and cycle path for a while as the sun came up.

Quite soon thereafter, we turned off on to a more minor road, and as we exited the sprawl of Coimbra, the landscape turned towards rural exploitation.

We had a Mystery Object Game along this stretch of road. It had no pavement and so we were walking in the margin, marked by a white line. I noticed that every so often there was a bolt in the road.

I made some humorous (no, really) comment about being glad that the road builders had bolted the surface down for us, but then we saw that these bolts happened regularly. The mystery deepened slightly when we came across one of these.

Black, hard rubber or plastic – we weren’t sure what they were for. Then, after a couple of hundred metres, we found out what was going on.

I suppose the idea was that the posts should give motorists a clue about where the edge of the road was, and equally it appeared that, over the years, many motorists had been slow to take the hint. Anyway, traffic was light and we didn’t have to take evasive action as we were walking along.

As yesterday, there was a fair bit of mist around which took a while to burn off

and it was pleasant to be walking in the cool. When we’re on these Camino gigs, Jane and I operate a “minimum qualifying distance” when it comes to coffee stops: 5km. So, I was delighted that at 5.05km into the walk, we passed a place that Google insisted was called Bogani Café, but was actually called Kontra a’dor Kafé. This is a pun on the Portuguese for something like “coffee against the pain”.

where a very cheerful chap served us a meia de leite and pastel de nata each. I was amused (in an ignorant Brit tourist way) by his sugar sachets

which still had the Bogani branding and seemed to advertise desperate music. (Actually, this was part of a set, which all carried cheerful slogans: Café Bogani awakens the senses, or friendship or, in this case, music.) The owner wished us well and we went on our way.

Another mystery presented itself by the roadside.

At first it just seemed that the post carrying the cables had simply keeled over. But, looking closer

we could see that it had actually been cut down – very odd!

We passed a field of grazing sheep. Unusually, instead of there being just one bellwether wearing a bell, they all seemed have bells, and the overall effect was quite lovely.

The road took us through the village of Fornos, which has an attractive azulejo on its outskirts

depicting Coimbra and featuring its brand of Fado music. Like other villages we’d seen, Fornos appeared to be preparing for (or perhaps recovering from?) a fiesta,

quite seriously.

(For those who haven’t come across it before, Sagres is a brand of beer named for the Portuguese town which sits at the southwestern tip of mainland Europe.)  A poster showed the scale of the celebrations, so we were right in the middle of the events.

Fornos appears to be a cheery place, with gardens featuring Belladonna Lilies

and erm, a Danceteria….

The outskirts merged seamlessly into the next village, Trouxemil, where there was an attractive church of Santiago

with a statue of the saint outside

and a neatly decorated church bell.

Just outside the church, an enterprising lady had taken over one of the town benches and was using it as a shop counter.

We’d done nearly 10km by this stage, and there was the possibility of another coffee stop nearby; however, we decided to go for the one at the far end of the village, the Café Central, because that would definitely be over the 10km mark, and Google said it was open.

Sadly, Google was wrong. Maybe the owner had been fiesta-ing too hard. Whatever, we didn’t want to go back, so we pressed on. The next village, again, merging with Trouxemil, was called Sargento Mor, which I hope doesn’t mean “Sergeant Death”.

It had a café that swore it was popular;

not, however, popular enough to be actually open. We did find one establishment where we could take coffee and a short rest. It was a kind of general-purpose outlet – café, pastelaria and general store, so we could take coffee and a pastry.

The road took us past some railings which were being used by aestivating snails who clearly couldn’t find any long grass, and then we headed out into the countryside for a trek along a track. As we were drinking our coffee, we’d noted a handful of peregrinos walking by, one of whom was this oriental lady who was wafting along quite gently,

and we also encountered a couple of the girls who had overnighted at Quinta de Cortiça a few days ago, so they were obviously making about the same progress as we were. The track was a bit trying, to be honest, as it was quite sandy in places, which made it a little slippery underfoot; but we eventually emerged and got back onto tarmac just outside Vimieira, where there were signs that the fiesta was being observed here, too.

Vimieira had its share of pleasant houses, as well as some that were a bit more ramshackle.

As we found in the earlier part of our walk, villages closely bordered each other

so we were then in Casal Comba, whence we caught sight of our final destination, Pedrulha.

(The Caminho goes through Mealhada, to which Pedrulha is a neighbour, and our original plan had been to stay in a hotel in Mealhada actually on the Caminho; but a family emergency at that hotel had enforced a change of plan, so we had left the Caminho in Vimieira and will rejoin it tomorrow. Except we won’t. See later.)

Our accommodation for the night was the “Vinyl M Hotel”, and, rather like Casa das Raposas, was something of an unknown quantity. It appeared to be not quite in the middle of nowhere but not anywhere reassuring, like near shops or restaurants. It could, for example, provide snacks rather than having a restaurant. I had visions of a sort of motel-type place, and we decided that we should try for something to eat before we got there, in case getting food would be difficult later. Pedrulha appeared to offer a café called RSB, which we set as a target. We got to the village square past a nicely-decorated house,

and there was a café immediately on our left,

so we looked in.

The photo makes it look better than it seemed IRL, but they had coffee and beer and pastries, so we used sign language to negotiate a couple of savoury pastries and coffee and beer – not as substantial as we’d envisaged, but better than nothing – and settled down outside for a perfectly pleasant lunch and a bit of a rest. Jane spotted that the village’s pillory had been fiesta-ised

and the keen of vision will spot a café in the background of that photo. Whether our place was this RSB or that other place was, we’ll never know; but after half an hour or so (and an extra beer for me) we walked the final 20 minutes, past one place which was the result of several courageous architectural decisions,

to see what awaited us at this Vinyl M place.

It looked motellish enough as we approached past a barrier

and I heard a voice calling out “boa tarde” behind me (“good afternoon” in Portuguese). When I didn’t react (well, it might have been for someone else), the voice said “boa tarde” again, but somehow in a slightly more emphatic way, so we looked around and saw a tiny hatch by the barrier with behind it as much of a face as it could reveal. That was Reception. As Jane was doing the formalities, I noticed the price list on the wall behind me

and was puzzled by the difference between minimum and maximum prices – a factor of 4! Anyway, the lady behind reception checked us in and led us across the yard to our room, in which our bags had already safely been stowed.

My fears about it being a tacky motelly place evaporated – it was a vast room, with an even bigger bathroom. But the decor! Their schtick (unsurprisingly given the “vinyl” monicker) is rooms themed around jazz, rock, tango and samba music. Breakfast could be delivered at whatever time we wanted – even at 5am! – and checkout wasn’t until midday.

When we’d mentioned to Jessica, back in Coimbra, that we were going through Mealhada she told us with delight that it was “suckling pig central” and that we should make an effort to try some. At the time, thinking as I did that Vinyl M was out in the boondocks, I didn’t rate our chances. However, it turns out that next door to Vinyl M was a place called Burguezia do Leitão, a combined hotel, lounge bar and restaurant – and leitão means, you guessed it, suckling pig, which gave us something of a clue as to what we might find on the menu. So, after the mandatory settling-in cup of tea and a quick look through the reams of content generated from yesterday in Coimbra, we headed out there to sample their wares. It took a certain amount of sign language and patience but we ended up with their signature leitão sandwiches and G&Ts and all was well with the world.

There being nothing else worth leaving the hotel for, this left the evening free for writing up the fantastic but full-on day we’d had yesterday in Coimbra on the blog.

We were on the verge of yet another heat wave in the area, with temperatures in the upper 30s C for the next three days; the distance to our next accommodation in Águeda was somewhere around 28-30km – probably 8 hours’ walking. So even if we set out at 6am, we’d still be walking at 2pm in the peak temperature of the day, 37C.

Not. A. Chance.

I booked an Uber for midday the next day so we could have the morning at leisure (pace having to get the bags to reception by 0800) and travel in comfort to Águeda, which looks like a very interesting city that deserves time to look around and appreciate. So Jane and I have to work out a plan which gets us a decent look around Águeda and gets us beyond it, to Albergaria, without having to spend too much time in termperatures well over 30°C. I wonder if Uber will get more of our business?

 

 

 

 

Day 13 – From Zambujal to Condeixa: Roman in the gloamin’

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Wednesday 9 September 2026 – Despite the weather forecasts, I was in for a bit of a surprise as we opened our door to go round to the house for breakfast. It was drizzling! The Met Office had opined that any drizzle should have stopped by then, and Accuweather stoutly maintained that there was 0% chance of precipitation. Anyway, the reality was low cloud and a light drizzle to greet us. Lara had laid out breakfast for us, with the usual fodder – yoghurt, granola, bread – and also some blueberry jam that had been made by her father, who apparently spends a lot of time making jam and sends a lot of it over to her from his home in northern Portugal. In general conversation, the subject of Marmite came up and, to my delight, she actually had some! She confessed that she didn’t know how to use it, so we were able to do a bit of cross-cultural information exchange, and got Marmite on toast out of it, which was a good start to the day.

We only had a dozen or so kilometres to cover today, so were able to start out relatively late, meaning in daylight, albeit in the remnants of the drizzle and low cloud.

The Caminho led us along the Rua de Santiago

past the church which had been the souce of the carillon we’d been regaled with the previous day.

Was that an image of Sant Iago himself to the left of the cross?

Nope. To our delight, it “struck” 8 as we passed by (despite the clock showing seven minutes past twelve), so we could listen once more, spellbound, to the tune that was belted out of the loudspeaker you can see in the photo above.

The road soon became track, leading past olive groves

and other crops, which in some cases appear to have been abandoned.

After about half an hour, we came to an arresting sight by the path,

which led not to an “authentic pilgrim experience” (to quote James Nesbitt’s character in the Camino film “The Way”), but to an experience with an authentic pilgrim. It turned out to be part of a pilgrim garden, Refúgio das Cabaças, the site where three pilgrims had made their permanent home and opened up the site for passing souls,

offering refreshments for a donativo.

On the site they had built a chapel, dedicated to Saint Jacinta,

and many other diverting pieces of decor

and an idea of what we still had to cover.

We treated ourselves to a coffee and a look round, and, when we went to say thank you and goodbye, one of the site’s pilgrims came out of his hut and read us some blessing text, which was sweet of him – and then said he would accompany us some way along the Caminho, as he needed to stretch his legs!

We had his company (and that of his dog) for the next half hour, as he pointed out various things beside the road as we walked: a shrine to Sant Iago

which he said was Spanish and inauthentic, as hats hadn’t been invented when the saint was around; the spiritual power of reversed numbers above lintels

to protect the inhabitants against evil spirits; an azulejo

bearing a reproduction of a picture painted by Pier Maria Baldi in 1669, marking the time members of the famous Medici family from Italy walked the Caminho.

He had been living at the site since 2019, having decided that he needed to step away from the snares and delusions of his previous life (we never found out exactly what that was – might he have been a corporate man?).

He greeted people as we went by, so was clearly a well-known presence. After a while it began to get a bit weird, as he started becoming more and more philosophical – and really in a calm way – about the errors of humanity and particularly Muslims. Jane, who has some knowledge of the Christian canon, did a marvellous job of engaging with him and indulging him in his more trenchant comments.

The trail left the road for a track which was quite narrow at times,

passed a litter of terminally cute puppies

and eventually led past a tiny hamlet, where he took his leave of us with another blessing.

A remarkable interlude.

By this stage we were only an hour or so away from Condeixa and so we carried on, along a forestry trail where it was clear that Eucalyptus were making a takeover bid.

It didn’t look like a planned planting, but there were plenty of the trees around, including some quite mature ones. Some of them had done that appealingly colourful peeling of the bark that we’d seen in Australia.

At one point we could see Condeixa

before plunging down a path that meant, of course, that we would have to, erm, plunge back up again.

This took us to the day’s main Thing To Do: explore the Roman ruins of Conimbriga, one of Portugal’s largest and most spectacularly preserved Roman settlements. Originally a Celtic hill-fort dating back to the 9th century BC, it was occupied by Roman troops in 139 BC and flourished under Emperor Augustus into a wealthy urban center complete with a forum, baths, an amphitheatre, and opulent aristocratic villas famous for their vibrant, intact mosaics. As the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the city built massive defensive walls, but it was ultimately ransacked by Germanic Suevi invaders in 468 AD, forcing its citizens to flee to nearby Aeminium (modern-day Coimbra). Archaeological interest began in 1873, and the site was declared a National Monument in 1910. Large-scale, systematic excavations launched in 1929, leading to the preservation of its world-class mosaics and the establishment of the on-site National Museum. Remarkably, despite over a century of study, only about 10 percent of Conímbriga has been excavated, leaving the vast majority of the ancient city still buried. Surrounding private land continues to be acquired by the state to broaden the search and launch new exploratory excavations.

We bought tickets – a bargain at €5 each for old people – and (after taking coffee at the handy site café, of course) walked around the site, which is quite extensive.

As you go in, at first blush it looks just like yer average Roman ruins,

but then you see your first mosaic and (if you have any soul) are captivated. The mosaics are phenomenal!

I don’t know the extent to which these have survived or been restored, but, whatever, the sight is amazing.

The buildings themselves are mere remnants of what there once was, like the forum

an aqueduct,

and the private houses. There are two striking examples. One is the house of Cantaber, an important aristocrat of Conímbriga in the 5th century, which is the biggest private residence in the city, with an area of 35090 square feet – 3260 square metres, about three-quarters of an acre, which is a substantial size for a house. It was built in the last quarter of the first century;

above is about the middle third of this huge house.

Another remarkable house is under cover, and is called the House of Fountains.

Again, the mosaics in this house are wonderful to see.

There is also a museum on site, which has a vast array of implements and accoutrements that have come to light in the excavation. It also has a model which shows how astonishing the Forum and its associated Basilica would have been.

I’ve attempted to put together a video which gives an idea of the sweep of the place and the extent of the mosaics.

We spent well over an hour on the site, and it was time well spent. When we left, we discovered that the grey skies and low cloud had cleared, the sun was shining – and it was beginning to get quite warm. All we then had to do was to get ourselves the relatively short distance to our hotel, which we managed with only one minor Map-Reality disconnect. We walked into Condeixa past the town hall

with its Manueline pillory.

Next door is a church, the Igreja de Santa Cristina

which has some decorative tiling on its spire

and in its calm interior

a low-key Eucharistic Throne?

We soon arrived at our hotel, the very posh Conimbriga Hotel do Paço,

where our room wasn’t yet available, but a Nice Lunch in the restaurant was. After lunch we ensconced ourselves in our room for the rest of the day to relax, gather ourselves and plan for the morrow.

Tomorrow’s destination is Coimbra, “the Oxford of Portugal”, which has an impressive University presence among its other attractions. It’s going to be a busy day, and a hot one, so we will probably set out early to cover as much of the ground as we can as early as we can. We also have An Assignation, but you’ll have to read the next entry to find out about that.