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Published: August 31st 2016
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We bid farewell to Felicidade
Leaving Alfama apartment in Lisbon. 24 August 2016, Wednesday. Lisbon to Santa Iria Day 1
23.73 km
In a prior blog entry I believe I mentioned that we arranged the Camino Portugal through Follow the Camino. Our lodging in Lisbon was arranged separately through Airbnb. But follow the Camino had contracted our luggage transfer. We were ready for them at 8 a.m. but no one arrived. At 9 o'clock I called the contact number in Ireland and asked who was to pick up our luggage? After a time I receive the driver's name and phone number.
Our great landlady, Felicidade, called and asked him to contact her at the time he would come for the luggage. So at 10:30, two hours later than expected we were out the door and down Rua Vigario to Santa Apollonia station where we caught the train to Braca de Prata station. We had walked the section from the Cathedral Se to this station on Monday evening. The markings of the yellow arrow to Santiago, and blue arrow to Fatima were at appropriate junctions for guidance.
Karen spent time on Tuesday in the Museu Nacional do Azulejo , which was great and she will describe.
So we started
near the station and walked along the side streets to Parque das Nacoes, the site of the 1998 Expo in Lisbon. It is a great park with an aquarium we did not visit, a teleferico and some pleasing residential and commercial architecture. Continuing on the boardwalks we stopped for a moment and are joined by Ayako, a young woman from Japan who walked with us to Alpriate. Ayako and her husband had come to a festival in Portugal. He had returned to Japan and she is spending the next month-and-a-half walking the Camino Portugal.
We passed by the park sculptures, including Catharine of Braganza, who introduced tea and "tea time" to England. Her dowry is said to have included Bombay, India. Also passed by the Torre Vasco da Gama, and the 17 kilometer long bridge across the river Tejo.
The next several hours are not as good. We turned and followed the small tributary, Rio Troncao. It passed along a very weedy ditch bank with ruts making walking slow and difficult. We passed several abandoned farms and several working farms until arriving at Granja where we stopped for cool drink and bathroom-and a stamp for our passport.
We should have followed Brierley's book, "Camino Portugal" and continued on the Camino path through Alpriate to Povoa and then followed road back to our hotel. Brierley book also shows a road going to the East and slightly South toward our hotel near the roundabout going to Alpriate. Our hotel VIP Executive Santa Iria, is on the busy highway N10. The grey colored route on the map with no number was a v-e-r-y busy, dangerous road which, almost 90 minutes, 4.6 km, and a very steep climb, found us again crossing a weedy path to the hotel. Thank God for GPS on phone and a very helpful lady we arrived safely, but close to 2000 in the evening. All we could manage was a shower, buffet dinner, recharge all our electronic devices and bed. It is 'bags out by 0800', in the morning.
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Marta
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Vibes from SCA
So good to see you on the Camino. Hope you liked Lisbon as much as we did a few years ago and glad you got to experience the FADO music. Harlan and Jo's day trip to Cascais and Sintra brought back some beautiful memories from our travels there. Karen I was glad to see you including some museums and sights in your extra rest days. Hope it gave you the time you needed to refresh and re-vibe so you will enjoy all the amazing people and experiences along your Portuguese Camino route.