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.