Tag Archives: Walking

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.

 

 

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.