Our Walk Along the Camino Portuguese

Birdwatching along the Camino Portuguese Camino Portuguese Pilgrimage As we left the albergue around seven this morning the sun was just coming up, turning the sky above the fields a beautiful golden pink. Alpriate is directly under the flight path of the planes landing at Lisbon International Airport, which seems to receive one jet about every  5 minutes, so the noise was fairly constant. The first stretch of trail took us across a nice field, and then down a somewhat busy stretch of road. There was quite a bit of traffic, but it might be less busy outside of rush hour. The road brought us to a small town where we stopped for a much-appreciated breakfast of pasties de nata and coffee at a bar.  After that, the arrows directed us to cross a bridge over the train tracks and continue down a road beside some abandoned buildings with plentiful interesting graffiti. Birds on the Camino Portuguese The next section of the trail took us along a boardwalk that runs through ...

Beginning the Camino Portuguese On the Way of St. James We headed out of our hostel around 7:45 AM into a foggy morning socked with a light mist. The narrow cobblestone streets lined with their colourful, tiled buildings seemed to disappear up into the clouds. A few blocks from the hostel we found a cozy cafe, Fabrica, where we stopped for strong, hot coffees and croissants still warm from the oven. We also purchased two apple walnut squares for the trail, which turned out to be a good idea, since there were some longer stretches later in the day with few cafes.  In this cafe, like everywhere else we have visited so far in Lisbon, English was fluently spoken. After our delightful breakfast, we made our way down to the Se Cathedral, along the narrow white cobblestone sidewalks which had become extremely slippery in the rain. Once past the cathedral, the Camino took us through Alfama, the Arab quarter of Lisbon. The cobblestone streets were very narrow and beautiful and...