Tag Archives: Hiking

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.

 

 

Day 12 – Walking again (!). From Ansião to Zambujal: Another good day

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Tuesday 8 September 2026 – Although the forecast for today was cooler than yesterday, and with less direct sunshine, we took no chances and laid plans to leave early. Because Ansiturismo’s earliest breakfast offering was 0730, perforce we had to make our own arrangements. We had walked to a supermarket yesterday evening (a big one, but still no Earl Grey!) and purchased some yoghurt, bread and fruit, so Jane prepared banana-and-honey rolls to follow our yoghurt.

Thus fortified, we started out at 0625 (again!).

It got a lot darker at 0630 when all the street lamps went off with a click, so I was glad we had a torch with us, but by about 0645 it was light enough to see where we were going. Tarmac road soon gave way to a track

which was the first, again, of many different surfaces we walked on today, sometimes tarmac, sometimes the dreaded strada bianca, sometimes tricky surfaces underfoot.

At the outskirts of Ansião, we could see, in the distance, the undulating countryside we’d be crossing in the 20-odd kilometres to our next accommodation, Casa das Raposas, in Zambujal (I’m having difficulty typing that name – it keeps coming out as Zumba gal). We had been trying to find out actually what this was – Google Maps opines that it’s a four-star hotel, but we had our doubts, particularly since the only meal they offered us was a vegetarian dinner. Anyway, undulating coutryside….

The walking was pleasant, but there was little out of the ordinary about the countryside. The first town we reached was Netos, some 50 minutes later. In many of the villages we’ve passed, it’s actually been difficult to detect signs of life – impossible to tell whether it’s deserted or disused.  Netos had clear signs of inhabitation, though,

with lots of cars parked around. Despite the evidence of inhabitation, it was very, very quiet, and we walked through without seeing a soul.  What we did see, though, was this fascinating object.

At first I thought this was a model of an aeroplane, but it’s a sewing machine, of course. And lovingly executed, with great attention to detail.

The plaque in front of it, translated, reads

“This piece, which paraded through the village of Ansião in 2018 as part of the People’s Allegorical Parade, represents a traditional sewing machine and pays homage to the seamstresses of this region.

“It was placed in this location on May 22, 2022.”

After Netos we entered woodland, which showed signs of being exploited for Eucalyptus

It’s nowhere (yet!) near the extent of the exploitation we saw on the Camino Finisterre. Since it’s an invasive species, we can only hope that lessons are learned from the Spanish experience.

The outskirts of the next village, Casais da Granja, made it look, frankly, abandoned

but as we passed through, we could see that the centre of the village was inhabited; why there is that area of desolation, we don’t know. One house demanded to be photographed.

As we left the village, though, there was more evidence of abandonment;

polytunnels just left to rot. We moved on. Much of the countryside is given over to grape vines, and we saw some being worked on.

There doesn’t seem to be large-scale exploitation of vines, but several small parcels

and we saw several small olive groves as we went along, too.

A high point of our walk, both literally and figuratively, would be Alvorge. To get there, we went through another tiny village called Junqueira, which had a well.

It’s operational, in the sense that you can turn the handle and (amid a lot of squealing and grinding) see a pump going up and down; but we never discovered whether it was actually functional in the sense of actually delivering water of any kind. No matter. We walked on, past some junior Eucalyptus

and reached Alvorge, which has many points of charm: some attractive houses;

no fewer than two town names;

a pleasant church garden, with a nice, upright cross in it;

and the church to which it’s attached, which emphatically does not have a nice upright cross.

However, the thing we were particularly interested in was

a coffee stop, which was welcome for a rest and, frankly, to warm up a bit – it had been very cool, with a chilly breeze thus far in the day. We treated ourselves to a couple of cups of coffee each whilst seeing a bit of village life unfold before us. The large gentleman in the pink shirt with his back to us was clearly the Town Bore, and kept up a virtual monologue for almost the whole time we were there, in what was certainly a loud voice and quite often what sounded like a hectoring tone, too. Mind, it’s difficult to interpret other languages, and for me Portuguese is, among the Romance languages, the most difficult to decipher, since it sounds more like Russian than a southern European language. Jane exchanged a glance and a grin with one of the long-suffering ladies who were being subjected to this verbal onslaught as we left.

Mirabile dictu, we emerged into scattered warm sunshine! I’ve described the trail we had to follow as “undulating”, and for this, the first half of our walk, it had undulated much more up than down, leaving us over 100m higher than our start – and with a decent view over the surrounding countryside.

The route after undulated down again more than up, starting with a steep descent down an escarpment out of the village.

At the bottom, when we reached the road, we passed a decent-looking picnic area,

a spectacularly disused lavadouro,

and the ruins of the Torre da Ladeia

which were largely unremarkable, but had a very impressive coat of arms over what was presumably once the front door.

From there we could see back up to Alvorge

and if you look carefully you can make out the bent cross. One wonders how that happened….

Some of the olive groves we passed were being underplanted with other crops – in this case vines.

We walked on, across fairly rough tracks which led, as you can see in the distance, to another surprisingly tough uphill pull.

We noted various things as we passed: emerging asphodel flowers;

a stonechat, which obligingly held still for a portrait;

and many different ways of deterring birds from crops, from shiny things flapping in the breeze

to ingenious arrangements of sections of oil barrel, which banged and clanged about as the wind blew them around.

Then, after a relatively tedious stretch of strada bianca in increasingly hot sunshine, we caught sight of our destination, Zambujal.

Before long we were outside our accommodation, Casa das Raposas,

which was, of course, locked, as the owner was away and we were well in advance of the official check-in time. I looked for a way in on one side of the building without luck, but Jane found another entrance and a bell, which she rang. A friendly but emphatically not Anglophone cleaner answered and helped our cause by calling the owner and handing her mobile to Jane. It took a while, but eventually we had a few minutes in the garden before the cleaner finished preparing our room and showed us there. It’s a rather lovely room; large, comfortable and equipped with kettle and fridge – well, a complete kitchenette, actually.

Jane’s conversation with the owners was not helped by the church bells, which rang out the half hour while she was having difficulty with a less than perfect mobile signal.  Here’s how they sounded for the hour at 5pm.

The place is owned and run by Lara and Sergio, and Lara came to make us welcome when she arrived. She also provided a splendid dinner for us and we spent a good while chatting with her before she gave us the house special selo, which is the featured image for this entry.

We have only a short walk tomorrow – somewhere between 10 and 14 km depending on how we plan the day. We only have to get to Condeixa-a-Nova, but there are Things To See there of great pith and moment, so it will be good to have the luxury of extra time spent not walking. Exactly what we get up to, you’ll have to come back to these pages to find out.

 

 

 

Day 11 – Walking (!) from Quinta da Cortiça to Ansião: a delightful day

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Monday 7 September 2026 – The Quinta was a good oasis in the middle of nowhere – spacious room, availability of hot water and milk, etc, but the facilities didn’t extend to air conditioning. We had a fan in the room which was better than nothing but rather noisy. Consideration of the weather (i.e. temperature) forecast, the improvement in Jane’s cough – she was able to sleep through the night without paroxysms – and the relatively modest distance to our next accommodation in Ansião of about 19km made the idea of actually walking seem like a reasonable prospect; if we set out before 7am, we could expect to arrive before midday, and the temperature should still be below 30°C by that stage.  As I’ve said previously, the breakfast arrangements at the Quinta meant that some breakfast foods were laid out overnight, with bread, we were told, arriving at 6am. So the alarm went off at 0500 (ah! the Camino!) and we were in the kitchen, along with all the other peregrinos staying there, before 6am.

The smooth organisation of the Quinta fell rather to pieces at this point, at least for those who wanted coffee at breakfast; the coffee machine refused to dispense coffee (but was still OK for nice hot water for our tea, hurrah!). Also, the bread hadn’t arrived by about quarter past six, so we (and all the other peregrinos) decided to cut and run, having had just cornflakes and fruit. We took a small milk container with us because, well, you never know.

So, we departed at 0625, with the moon still in the sky and into beautiful, cool – possibly even a tad chilly – conditions.

Others departed at the same time as we did,

and we got a real feeling of – at last! – being On A Camino, rather than just wandering along being stared at by locals because we were wearing backpacks. Another good thing was being able to moan (quietly) about the other peregrinos; the girl on the left in front had no ferrules on her sticks, so they were a staccato accompaniment to what would have been lovely early morning twilight if they’d only stop prattling to each other. There was also the sound of quite loud conversation behind us for about 20 minutes, and soon we were overtaken by

a solo peregrina, who was gabbling away on her phone! One wonders why, if she dislikes silence and her own company so much, she is bothering to walk a Camino. But this is all me being grumpy. Of course other people can do their Caminos the way they want, even if it does show that they’re idiots.

Jane, ever eagle-eyed, spotted that we passed some fig trees which were sporting some lovely ripe fruit,

so we helped ourselves to Nature’s bounty (or at least the bit we could reach) to supplement the rather limited breakfast we’d had.  All the way along our route today there were various fruits to be seen: sweet chestnuts, walnuts, pomegranates, persimmons, quince, peaches (or possibly apricots, depending on whether you believe Google lens or not) and even apples.

We started off on tarmac, but soon diverted onto a cobbled path,

past Belladonna Lilies, which were in full flower. Eventually, of course, the sun cleared the horizon

but because of the low angle, we continued to walk in shade.

We came to a section where there were several Cork Oak trees,

in an area which looked like it was being sympathetically managed,

with careful and not excessive extraction of the bark. Since this tree is a big part of the Portuguese ecosystem, it was good to see.  I noted one that had been cut down, for whatever reason, and it is a good demonstration of how thick the bark can be.

We walked through pleasant countryside, tiny hamlets and some smaller villages. As we went along, there were some nice decorative touches to be seen: sculptures;

the occasional mural;

decorative topiary;

architectural flourishes;

lots of decorative tile work;

and this lovely mailbox.

Another thing that gave today that “authentic Camino feel” was the existence, after 5km, of a town, Alvaiázere, which was substantial enough

to feature somewhere to stop and take coffee,

so we did, of course, and a pastry (got to make up for that lack of bread, y’know), in a café which gave us chapter and verse on how much further we had to go.

The sun rose, as is typical of its daily behaviour

and occasionally provided some nice warmth – it really felt almost chilly. But our route was largely in shade

for which we were duly thankful. The kilometres after Alvaiázere were up quite a long ascent, and I’d taken my walking poles with me in case it turned out to be burdensome. But actually it was perfectly comfortable to walk up; being largely in the shade really helped, of course.

Every so often, we’d pass through a hamlet, and it was actually difficult to decide whether some of them were entirely abandoned or just very, very quiet.

There were several buildings which were clearly disused. This one was rather magnificent in its decrepitude

and this one was clearly being sold as a bit of a doer-upper.

We had a variety of surfaces to walk on, mostly either tarmac or cobbles. There was the occasional stretch of dirt road and at one point a fairly rough track which required care with one’s footwork.

Eventually we saw in the distance what I took to be Ansião

and we headed there, despite some slightly confusing waymarkery.

The outskirts provided some pleasant touches to the houses we passed

and we soon reached the town proper,

and, at 1126, just five hours after setting out, our accommodation, Ansiturismo, which is described as an Alojimento – lodgings, I suppose.

On entering, we found ourselves in a general situation that I suspect we’ll encounter many, many more times before we get to Santiago – there was no-one at reception, and check-in time noted as 3pm. So we discussed what we should do next in quite loud voices, just in case someone might hear us. And our luck was in! A lady came down the stairs very clearly equipped for doing the cleaning. Her English was limited but her preparedness to help boundless. She showed us across the road to another establishment, where our Walk The Camino booking was registered, and they gave us the magic combination that enabled us to unlock the key to our room, which had been cleaned and was ready for us. The cleaner also showed us where our bags were and led us to our room; she really couldn’t have been more helpful, and we were very appreciative.

As you can see from the photo, Ansiturismo is a modern building, and, like the other modern places we’ve stayed at, well-organised. The room had air con and a kettle! (There was also a fridge, but although it was making noises, it didn’t appear to be cooling anything.) So we could indulge ourselves in a cup of tea and a bit of a rest before heading out to find some lunch.

Ansião is a reasonably substantial town, so I had thought that we would have a choice of bars and/or restaurants. We walked towards the one I had thought would be a good choice, only to find that it was closed, so we headed back to one we’d passed earlier, which began to look like the only option. The town was very quiet, but is not bereft of charm.

It even boasts a Town Name!

I was slightly amused by one place we passed. I’ve commented before that it’s sometimes difficult at first blush, to distinguish whether a wall is covered in artistic display or decayed plaster. This building had both.

We took our lunch, therefore, in Manjar do Diogo, which translates as “Diogo’s Delight”. It’s a lunchtime joint, with a pastelaria and a cafeteria, so we went into the cafeteria bit and a nice young lass behind the counter explained how things worked and ladled masses of good healthy salad on to our plates (as well as opening a bottle of beer each for us). Total cost of lunch was €19, good value and healthy. Having stuffed our faces, we took coffee in the pastelaria and scored a couple of cakes (for later on, in case of extreme pangs, you understand), and headed back to our – now cool – room in Ansiturismo. By this time, the sun was stingingly hot, so we were glad we’d made the earlier start.

Today has been a very pleasant day. We have a walk tomorrow of a similar distance to today’s – 20km, ending in a small place called Zambujal. I rather think it’ll be not dissimilar to the Quinta da Cortiça, i.e. the only accommodation anywhere near; I can’t find evidence of any other bars or shops or that kind of thing. We will start out early again – earlier than Ansiturismo is prepared to offer us breakfast – so need to go shopping for supplies before the stores close today. The temperature should be less than today and I’m hoping that tomorrow will be as enjoyable as today has been.