Our Walk Along the Camino Portuguese

Foggy Morning on the Portuguese Camino Fog, Fields and Pilgrim Friendships We left the hostel around 7:30 AM this morning after a nice breakfast of coffee, bread, jam, yogurt, and orange juice.  Like all the Portuguese people we've met so far,  the man who ran the hostel was very friendly and helpful and also had advice about the coming walk.  He was clearly a proud member of the Knights Templar and shared some interesting stories about the upcoming town of Tomar. When we emerged from the hostel, we found the tiled market and central town square shrouded in mist.  We made our way through the cobblestone streets of town, across the train tracks, and into the waterfront park. This is clearly a commuter town for Lisbon, and there were lots of cars, buses, and trains heading into the city.  The tree-covered park looked magical in the fog, as did the train platform with all the people.   As we left the town behind, the Camino took us down a countr...

Birdwatching along the Camino Português 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 Português The next section of the trail took us along a boardwalk that runs through a...