Category Archives: Walking

Day 1 – it begins: Lisbon to Santa Iria de Azoia

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Friday 28 August 2026 – And so our long trek starts. The official distance of the Caminho is 630km, and the chunk we addressed today was allegedly around the 18km mark. The alarm was set for 0600 so that we could take an early breakfast at the hotel. We managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but it had become clear during yesterday that Jane was coming down with a cold, poor love. This didn’t help her night’s sleep, but anyway we got on with our morning routine as best we could, got our bags down to reception so that they could be collected and sent on to our destination today – Santa Iria de Azoia, a town up the Tagus River from Lisbon – and got some breakfast inside us. We had been burning through our stock of Twinings finest Earl Grey at an alarming rate and indeed had used half of it just in our time in Lisbon. My confidence in being able to find replacements in the shops had been entirely misplaced thus far – frankly, you’re lucky to find even English Breakfast in the supermarkets of Lisbon. Carlos, bless him, had given us some supplies, which were keeping us going; I just hope we can find some before too long.

We officially started our Caminho at 0845 in lovely sunny weather in front of the Cathedral

and cast about for a Caminho waymark which no less a source than John Brierley had told us was at the foot of some steps.  We eventually found it – just a small sticker on a lamppost, which is a bit anticlimactic.

We found another one not too far away

but these were the only waymarks we found for several kilometres. Had we been reliant on them to find our route, we would have been buggered; but of course we had our invaluable online map from Walk The Camino, so were never in danger of losing our way. Even with that we had to make a few ad hoc adjustments in the face of roadworks and other construction efforts going on.

One can understand why Porto is a more popular starting place than Lisbon for people doing a Caminho; the walk out through the capital’s largely industrial and almost entirely scruffy suburbs is not particularly uplifting to the spirit. This was pretty much in line with our expectations, so we simply got on with finding our way along our route, which bordered railway and port areas.

It wasn’t all grime and gloom. Among the tatty and grimy buildings there were a few things worth noting as we passed:  architectural touches;

an area where Fado was clearly a popular art form;

some large format street art;

Metropolitana – an artwork that shows the 18 municipalities of Lisbon coming together to create local symbolism. The yellow dress and cobalt blue lines are “gold on blue”, a Portuguese expression that defines the possibility of achieving an ideal situation. The earrings are the carnations of 25 of April, marking the Portuguese revolution

some buildings which were once handsome or might once again be;

The Tile Museum – labelled as “temporarily closed” but looking further downbeat than that

and generally an attempt to cheer things up a bit.

Our route took us past the very imposing Pantheon building

and also a particular artwork that Jane wanted to see (and make sure I’d seen, too).

The koala is one of several animals created aound Lisbon by Bordalo II, a  Portuguese street artist and self-described artivist. This installation is a great example of his typical work – large installations and murals made from recycled trash, with the intention of highlighting waste and over-consumption in our world today. It has a 3D element to it, as one can see when looking more from the side.

More of Bordalo later.

Other things we passed: a bizarre open shopfront;

a Romanesque arch leading counterintuitively to a view of gasometers;

and several imposing buildings which, despite appearances, are flourishing businesses.

We’d gone over 7km before we spotted our next Caminho waymark,

and it became clear at this point that we were moving out of the scruffy, industrialised suburbs, into an area of considerable redevelopment.

We were entering the Parque das Nações, the neighbourhood that emerged around the site, next to the River Tagus, where the 1998 World Expo was held. It was a complete change from the very industrial and rather shabby areas we’d been walking through thus far. Importantly, as we’d done 8km by this stage, there was a coffee stop, which suited us very nicely; I was feeling the need for a rest, and Jane, fighting her cold, was particularly ready to take a seat and some refreshment.

Coffee and pastries fortified us to carry on, and we headed for something that Jane, again, particularly wanted to see and to make sure I saw it, too. You approach it in a kind of “do you know what it is yet?” kind of a way

and eventually, it becomes clear that it’s another imposing piece by Bordalo II.

Isn’t it fabuous? An Iberian lynx, made entirely from rubbish and recycled materials – hard hats, lawn mowers, dustbin lids, you name it. An extraordinary piece of work.

There were other artworks on display around the Parque, such as this “paddling pool”,

and we came across another Caminho waymark – just the fourth since we started, and really not a very impressive attempt at one, either.

In the background one can see the Vasco de Gama Bridge, which at the time of its construction (just in time for the 1998 Expo) was the longest bridge in Europe at 17km.

We approached it along the waterfront, where the suspension part is most prominent.

(If you look carefully under the span on the left, you can see a small blue blob – that was pretty much our destination for the day, Santa Iria de Azoia.

Close to, the bridge is, unsusprisingly, pretty impressive

It’s officially some 17km long, if you include all the access roads, but the part that crosses the Tagus is about 10km long. From the river bank near the bridge, you can look back at another Expo landmark – the Vasco de Gama Tower.

The tower is 160m tall, and features the highest viewpoint in Portugal; the Myriad hotel is a later addition which opened in 2012. We actually ignored one possible attraction at the Parque, the gondola ride which runs long the waterfront towards the tower. But if we’d done that, we’d have missed the impact that the Lynx made, and so I think we made the correct decision not to ride it.

Vasco de Gama, as you probably already know, was a mariner, explorer and nobleman around the late 1400s and early 1500s. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in world history. Carlos had given us to believe that he was a thug and not really an expert navigator, that his brother did all the hard work. It’s certainly true that he was capable of extreme violence if given the mandate for it; but he really was the master of a multi-vessel expedition fleet; yes, there were more experienced navigators in the fleet, but Vasco de Gama made some bold decisions which enabled his achievements and secured his place in history. His brother was involved with one of his expeditions, but wasn’t, as far as I can work out, the real navigation brains of the family.

Shortly after the bridge there’s a Caminho divergence point. The traditional route veers off left and goes a way inland, but recently a more direct route has opened up which stays beside the waters of the Tagus. Since doing the old route would add some 8km to our journey, we’d decided that we’d go for the riverside version. I’m glad we did, and not just for the shorter walk.

At first, I feared that we were in for another dose of the dreaded strada bianca which had made quite a lot of our Via Francigena route less than rewarding when we walked it in Italy a year ago

but when the path veered left, the new route took us over a new bridge, the Ponte Ciclopedonal do Trancão, which is a combined cycle and footbridge (you’ll have guessed that from the name, of course).

This leads to a boardwalk; I’d had a look at Google Maps and formed an impression of what this would be like that was entirely wrong. It’s not just a few planks laid down to make things easy for walkers (or even Walkers), but a significant piece of infrastructure called the Percurso Ribeirinho de Loures.

I might add that even though this is now recognised as a formal Caminho route, there’s no indication on any of the signage that this is so.

However, it’s a pleasant way of crossing the Tagus’s riparian marshland. Apart from anything else, there are occasional points where one can take a breather out of the worst of the direct sunshine, which Jane was particularly pleased to find.

The other thing (or things) we were particularly pleased to find were

flamingoes. Jane had heard that there were flamingoes by the river, but Carlos had rather given us to think we’d missed flamingo season.  He was emphatically wrong on that; there were hundreds of ’em

along with a host of other water-loving birds.

The walkway connects a number of parks along the banks of the Tagus, and is pleasant walking even in the heat of the direct sun; one feels out amidst nature, which is a Good Thing. There’s a lot of industrial stuff going on inland

(there’s that blue blob we first saw as we approached the bridge), but one feels somewhat isolated from it.

What was not such a Good Thing, though, was our uncertainty about exactly how to get off the blessed boardwalk. We knew that we had to cross a motorway and a railway to get to our hotel, but it was entirely not clear how we were supposed to do this. Google proposed a route that was sheer fantasy involving a bridge that simply isn’t there; Garmin proposed another one but that would add distance. In the end, and after only one fruitless excursion into the marshlands, we found the way out to the road network that led under the motorway and over the railway, and

there was our hotel! So we made haste and arrived there – just as the restaurant was closing for lunch. Never mind; after 19.5km, we were more interested in a mug of tea, which we managed to organise forthwith.

Jane was really ready to rest and relax at that point, but I took it upon myself to mount one more mission; the continuing search for stocks of Earl Grey. There was a Lidl next door to the hotel, so I confidently strode thither, sure that I would return with bags of teabags to replenish our store. I was in for a surprise; there was none! What is a man to do when an established store doesn’t have the right tea, eh? Never mind: the hunt goes on.

We return to the boardwalk for tomorrow’s route, which will take us further up the river to Vila Franca de Xira. Opinions differ about the length of the walk, which might be 17km or it might be 21. We don’t know right now. What does seem clear is that we will be largely without coffee stops, which is a shame, but I expect we’ll survive. Tune back in soon to find out, why don’t you?

More looking around Lisbon

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Monday 24 August 2026 – The weather forecast for the morning was not one that encouraged tourism in any way at all, so we treated ourselves to a lie-in and a late breakfast. The Plan A for the day was to take the 15E tram to Belém, admire the monastery, tower and statue dedicated to Henry the Navigator before retiring to Belém’s famous Pie Shop to have one of their pastel de natas, which are world famous in Belem. We’re very fortunate that Jane checked out this plan in some detail in the morning, at which point we discovered that Belém is shut on a Monday. This gave us a fair chunk of the day back, and we decided that a visit to the castle was likely to be a decent thing to do. We relaxed for the rest of the morning whilst comparing the Met Office and Accuweather versions of the forecast to see when we could venture out.

In the end, the Met Office was more sanguine about the rain clearing so we decided to believe its version of the truth and headed out towards the castle via a coffee stop, which was educational in its way, both for us and the café staff. Our serving of choice for coffee is a flat white, which we thought translated into Portuguese as a meia de leite. The waitress insisted that a galão was what we were after, so we trusted her. Not that it’s a huge issue, but future coffee-drinking travellers might like to to note that a galão is effectively a latte, so if you want a flat white, don’t ask for one of them. We pointed out the similarity between galão and caffe latte to the waitress and hope that future visitors to that coffee shop will benefit from our experience.

We also passed some nice tile work,

particularly fine examples being at the viewpoint the Miradouro de Santa Luzia

which rather flattered to deceive, since the view it gave one was mainly of cruise ships in the harbour. I read that it’s at the head of an elevador, and indeed followed a sign pointing me at it. But I couldn’t find it and further research (thank you to my editor) informs us that it’s well disguised and looks like part of an apartment block, so it’s one of those things that IYKYK; Google Maps won’t help you find it.

The online map that Walk The Camino had sent us as part of our preparation was of the opinion that the Caminho actually started at Santa Luzia, rather than at the Cathedral, which would on the face of it seem to be a more intuitive place to start on your 610km journey. We cast around for a bit to see if we could find any evidence of this; Jane had noted that there was a Rua de Santiago, so that seemed a promising avenue, sorry, Rua of investigation,

and Jane eventually spotted this, on a building nearby, which turned out to be – wait for it – the church of Santiago de Lisboa!

So our online map was accurate, but I’m buggered if I saw any other signposts for a Caminho in the area, or, indeed anywhere else we’d been in the city.

We’d made a fair uphill journey (sans elevador,if you’ll pardon me mixing my languages) to get to Santa Luzia. The castle was further uphill. Everything in Lisbon is further uphill. This is a typical profile of a wander round Lisbon.

We made our way to the castle, for which Jane had bought tickets in advance – which is just as well, as the ticket office and entry were small-to-medium sized bundles of chaos in an otherwise relatively ordered world. We’d hoped to get on a 1pm English language guided tour, but long story short there wasn’t one, so we just wandered round to see what we could see.  And what we could see mainly was some very fine views across the city.

Across the water is the Santuário de Cristo Rei, with its (slightly) junior version of the Rio de Janeiro Christ statue,

and we got a lovely panorama of the city

as well as a view of things we’d seen in passing yesterday with Carlos: the ruins of the Carmo Convent;

the “under maintenance” Elevador Santa Justa;

and the Graça church (if you look carefully, you can see the funicular carriage in transit).

We could also make out about half of the Star of David fountain in Praça Martim Moniz, the gateway to the Jewish quarter.

Lisbon was under Moorish rule for almost 450 years from 711. The fortress was built in the 10th century and was captured by King Afonso Henriques during the Siege of Lisbon in 1147, part of the great Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. Because we didn’t manage to get on to a guided tour, we didn’t learn much more about the castle, but it was pleasant to wander around. Entry to the main part is over a moat

which Carlos had told us (with, I think, a certain ghoulish relish) was filled with human excrement as a way of discouraging invaders. This was in its day, you understand. Modern health and safety would have something to say about it these days.

The walls and parapets are extremely well-preserved and accessible.

There are several items of interest, such as this sundial

and arrow slits constructed so that bows could be shot in multiple directions.

All in all it was an enjoyable hour or so we spent wandering around. There are peacocks in the grounds and we saw two peahens, each with their chicks of differing ages, which were rather cute.

We had a very engaging encounter just outside the exit of the castle. A sign invited us to look inside the Castle’s church, the Church of Santa Cruz, labelled “Lisbon’s birthplace”*, and so, on a whim, we did.  It’s nothing particularly spectacular inside,

although the altar piece is lavishly decorated.

What marked it out was a chance conversation with a young lady who was busy doing detailed conservation work on some of the elaborate curlicues.

She explained to us what she was doing: applying a white base to smooth out the outlines of the feature; then she would apply some red colour (which you can see in places already set); and finally she would apply gold leaf

which would be burnished in once it was well and truly stuck down. She was delightful to talk to and very patient with our dumb questions.

The walk back to the hotel led past a few other sights of note: some street art;

a shop with a bizarre range of artefacts on display

including, delightfully, Christ on a bicycle,

an image which will stay with me whever I need to swear; some more lovely azulejas,

and the excavation site of a Roman theatre.

which once would have looked like this.

There was a wall with a lovely demonstration of anti-aliasing (Google that, if necessary)

a café which actually had flat white on the menu,

and the church of St.Anthony

with its vivid floral display,

which Jane managed to get a picture of between the hordes of people using it as the backdrop for fucking selfies.

For our dinner, we went to an area we’d first noted in our search for Earl Grey (we’d thought that an Auchan, even a little local one, might have some, but no….). It’s a cross road to the Rua Augusta, which has any number of touristy eateries along it, but one restaurant among all the others called to us

mainly because it was the only one not to have pictures of its food on display. It was called Em Alta Na Baixa,  and it was very good – a fitting note on which to (pretty much) end our stay in Lisbon.

We will meet Carlos tomorrow and he has, he tells us, plans for about an hour more of showing us around Lisbon before he takes us off to Sintra – where he will be our guide the day after. Sintra appears to have all manner of strange and wonderful Things To See, and we’ve never been there before, so we’re rather looking forward to it and hope that you now are, also, and will stay in touch with these pages to see how we got on.

 

 

*  The Igreja Paroquial do Castelo, also known as the Church of Santa Cruz, is an 18th century building within the castle walls, occupying the site of the old fortress mosque (which itself was on the site of a Roman temple). Since the mosque was purified and consecrated as a Christian church immediately upon the reconquest of Lisbon on 25 October 1147, and the church holds the city’s oldest administrative parish records, it merits the title “Lisbon’s birthplace”.

 

Day 6 – The Most Expensive G&T In The World?

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Friday 19 June 2026 – At yesterday’s briefing, we had been, as usual, presented with a choice between two walks. The main difference would be pace, with a well ‘ard group simply walking a little faster and doing a couple of extra kilometres before being set free to get some refreshment. I actually put my name down for that, because it didn’t seem, on the basis of the information to hand, to be too arduous, just slightly longer. However, on the day, given that the forecast was for temperatures in the 30s (yes! almost as hot as the UK where I write this one week later!) I chickened out and joined the shorter walk. Which turned out not to be shorter at all. Or even much slower. But it was still chickening out.

Anyhoo, for both groups the end point would be the same: the jewel of the Italian Riviera – Portofino.

Our start point was a place called Camogli, which would be a boarding point for a boat ride and which Tomaso said was-a nice-a place, so I expected another charming fishing village. Wrongly, as it turned out. Camogli is 38km as the crow flies from Bonassola, but as the bus drives it’s over double that distance and takes an hour and a half. The bus we were in was the same (horrible, noisy, cramped, uncomfortable) bus that had brought us in from the airport the previous weekend. And it dropped us in the middle, it seemed, of a city. Which is fair enough, what with Camogli being a city an’ all, just not what I’d expected. It didn’t seem like-a nice-a place at all, particularly since the bus had to drop us off some distance from where we had to board the boat. There seemed to be other tourist groups as well, as we trooped off to find our quay.

We passed a point where we could look further along the coast, and could actually make out the city of Genoa in the distance.

Then abruptly we turned right down some steps, and we could see why Tomaso liked the town.

There were lots of steps down through some typically Italian narrow streets, and some very fine trompe l’oeil on the buildings.

The harbour itself is very attractive,

and the structure of the town is unusual, as can be seen from a map.

You can see that  there is a peninsula jutting out from the mainland; originally this was an island (hence being called L’isola) reached by a bridge, and this was the original old town. We went for a look round, but only after having bought our lunch, at a focaccieria specifically recommended by Tomaso.

The main component of l’isola is a church, the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta.

To get to it requires climbing steps which then gives one a decent view back over the harbour,

and, looking the other way, the town beach.

Outside the church is a lovely tiled description of L’isola

above a patterned courtyard.

The church itself is, once again, sumptuously appointed, with some gorgeous painted illustrations and decoration

and some colourful stained glass.

We had a few moments before our boat departed, so I wandered round taking some more photos of the harbour.

The rather colourful boat shown above is “U Dragun“, a symbol of Camogli, a hybrid sail- and rowing boat, known for its traditional design and used in historic re-enactments and festivals.

As we boarded our boat, we noted that someone, sadly, had lost their hat,

but there were lots of places that would have sold a replacement, so probably not a tragedy. Soon, we were off and could see the slightly surreal frontage of the city – all those uniform buildings with their uniform dark windows staring at the world.  Attractive, but slightly unsettling at the same time.

It was a short trip, just round the headland to a place called San Fruttuoso. The reason we were going by boat is that it can only be accessed on foot or by sea. It’s well-known for its abbey,

a Benedictine monastery dating back to the year 1000. It’s also a miniature beach resort, of course,

and, unusually, something of a centre for scuba diving. In the abbey is a statue called “Christ of the Abyss”.

which is a replica of a statue which has been placed in the waters of the bay in memory of Dario Gonzatti, the first Italian to use scuba gear in his dives, who tragically died near this spot in 1947. It’s at a depth of about 17 metres, and is garlanded with flowers every July by scuba divers in memoriam.

We had to walk around the back of the abbey to get to the start of our trail, and this gave us some more views of the village.

We passed an old lavatoio,

which would once have been where the public could wash their clothes, and walked between a restaurant and its terrace,

which looked like a wonderful place to have said “sod it, it’s too hot, let’s have lunch”, but we pressed on. The sea was a wonderful colour. It would have been a lovely lunchtime view on that terrace. Sigh.

It almost immediately became obvious that my hopes for a gentle uphill gradient for our walk were completely misplaced.

Bugger. That lunch-on-the-terrace idea was an increasingly attractive proposition at this point. But we soldiered on. To give you some idea of the climb, here’s a view of a Saracen watchtower taken early on.

And here’s the view of the same watchtower taken some 37 minutes later.

Between these two shots, this is the terrain we had to deal with.

We got a final view of San Fruttuoso

before – finally! – making it to our lunch spot,

where, amusingly, the well ‘ard set were still having lunch. We shooed them off so we could have ours, and then pressed on. The views continued to be lovely

but the trend, annoyingly, continued to be upwards,

albeit past some lovely views.

I see some cypresses have escaped from Tuscany

I discovered this boat is called Sea Cloud II, operated by Sea Cloud Cruises

The path levelled out a fraction and we came across, of all things, a lamppost! With a light bulb still in it!

Then there were more, and it became clear that we’d reached an outpost of civilisation, a small hamlet called Prato, where there was a water point.

Rebecca invited us to refill our water bottles, but we didn’t, because we still had plenty left. The general manic focus on water and hydration was a bit puzzling to Jane and me. We were enjoined to take litres and litres of the stuff with us, and each of us had a couple of water bottles in our backpacks; hers were 800ml and mine were 500. In all the walking in all the heat, we never needed to broach mine – I simply carried the same water up and down all the hills we’d covered. And yet we didn’t go thirsty at any point. Sure, the beers at the end of the walks were very welcome, but I found the dichotomy of what we were told we needed and what we actually drank a bit of a mystery.

Anyhow, the route to Portofino was all downhill from here, which at first seemed like a good idea,

leading us past a fantastic view of the town of Portofino,

but the path soon degenerated into steps.

Lots of the fuckers.

I had been perfectly all right going down steep slopes for the past few days, but for my right knee, these steps were the last straw. By the time I walked into Portofino, it was clear that All Was Not Well. I wasn’t crippled; walking straight and level was OK, but anything other needed care, concentration and, preferably a handrail. Didn’t stop me from joining the others at the Dolce & Gabbana bar for a glass (or, in my case, two) of something cold, though. We were joined there by the well ‘ard set, who were supposed to have done extra kilometrage out to the Portofino lighthouse and back, but it was too hot, poor dears.  Actually, in their defence, I think they took a longer route from the top down to Portofino which involved a more gentle descent – longer and hotter, maybe, but their knees were still working when they got down.

I was expecting Portofino to be (a) larger and (b) more impressive than it actually is. It’s by no means unattractive

but nothing outstandingly different from the sort of places we’d seen over the last days. It is, though, at the heart of the Italian Riviera and has a reputation of being very up-market. Well, anywhere that’s got a Dolce & Gabbana shop that doubles as a bar is likely to be on the posh side. So I was not particularly surprised to see the bar bill.

I had the gin and “Portofinese Gold” (perfectly nice beer in a very fancy bottle), and Jane had the spremuta – freshly squeezed OJ. Naif that I am, I don’t think I’ve ever paid over £20 for a G&T before. I’m not complaining, by the way – I knew it was going to be expensive. But I thought the prices worth commenting on, you understand. Actually the chap at the till was all over the place and initially wanted to charge me €90, but I’d only had a couple of drinks, so I was wise to his game.

We had to make a reasonably swift departure to catch the boat for a further short cruise round the Portofino headland. Out we went,

past the Splendido Hotel, which is a Belmond gaff, and thus thoroughly in line with the up-market values espoused by the Portofino set,

and the Portofino lighthouse that the well ‘ard set had so signally failed to get to.

The destination for our short ferry ride was the next town along the headland, Santa Margherita Ligure. It has the same slightly unsettling uniformity of architecture in the houses along the sea front, so it’s obviously A Thing in these parts.

It’s a very fine town,

with the usual crop of top-notch trompe l’oeil décor

but we had no time to stop and stare, as our bus was waiting for us so we could bump and grind our way back to Bonassola in time for a slightly delayed evening briefing and drinkies before dinner. Today was our last walk, and we had to return home on the morrow, so the briefing was kind of important in order that we understood the timings for the day. My knee being in the state it was, I was rather grateful that the hotel had a lift to get me to the fourth floor terrace for that…

Our official flight time home the next seemed quite reasonable, but because of the potential for cock-ups courtesy of the EES, we had to make an early start. The day turned out not to be entirely uneventful and I will detail it in the next post, which will be the valedictory entry for what has been an excellent, if quite sweaty, week.