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.