Day 2 - August 25, 2016 – Santa Iria de Azoia, Portugal to Vilafranca de Xira – 22.14 Miles After checking out of our hotel, we started walking towards the train station and passed by some beautiful morning glories. Upon reaching the train station we crossed over the tracks and followed the trail through an industrial area passing by several large beautiful gardens. The trail now turns into a walkway taking us through the Tejo estuary which is busy with local walkers and runners. As we leave the estuary we come to the Alverca do Ribatejo rail station and the air museum Museo do Ar where I take a couple of pictures of some of the planes. After crossing over the railway we find ourselves back on a dirt path that takes us past playing fields ... read more

Lisbon – August 23, 2016 – Last Day Today Harlan and I decided to take the train to Sintra to do some sightseeing while Karen visited the Museu Nacional do Azulejo (museum of Portuguese tiles). While we were on the train I took a couple of pictures of what I thought was pretty neat graffiti. We arrived in Sintra around 9:45 am as did many other people ready for a fun day of sightseeing. Upon departing the train, we walked up the hill past the Municipal building along with the National Palace which is the oldest surviving royal palace in Portugal that is still used for official receptions. We did not tour the National Palace as we were more interested in getting to the Palace of Pena and Moorish Castle. After passing the National Palace we ... read more

First of all I apologize for this blog being so lengthy but we did have a very busy day touring the area and I didn’t want to leave anything out. We left the apartment at approximately 10:30 am and finally returned around 8 pm after walking 11.5 miles and 25,309 steps and we haven’t even started walking the El Camino yet. The day began with Harlan and I (Karen stayed at the apartment as she still is not feeling well) walking to the cathedral (Se) to get our El Camino passport stamp since when we start the walk on Wednesday morning the church will be closed. For those of you who are not familiar with the El Camino we are required to get at least one stamp every day in our passport so when we arrive ... read more

Arrived in Lisbon, Portugal with no problems. At the apartment we have rented and getting last minute instructions on how things work along with where things are in the city. Will head out shortly to do some sightseeing. Probably be an early night as didn't get much sleep on the plane. Hopefully will get some photos posted tonight ... read more

I made it home safe and sound Sunday night. This is my final post for my Mont Blanc blog. Since being home, I have went into each post and added pictures so hopefully for those of you who do not have Facebook you will be able to see all the pictures with each post. The pictures included with this post were taken on Saturday when I arrived back to Geneva, Switzerland prior to catching my flight on Sunday. It has been a lot of fun doing the blog and apologize I was unable to post pictures earlier but hopefully you will now be able to see them. Thank you everyone for viewing my posts. It was am amazing experience I will never forget and definitely not an easy hike!!!!... read more