Advertisement
Published: September 6th 2016
Edit Blog Post
Day 9 – September 1, 2016 - Tomar, Portugal to Alvaiazere, Portugal - 21.5 Miles After picking up the sack breakfast (actually sack lunch) the owner of the hotel had left for us at the reception area we headed out before the sun had risen to locate the trail. Karen who is going to take the bus to Alvaiazere walked with us to the bridge where according to John Brierley’s book we should find the trail. Got a great picture of Karen and Harlan standing on the bridge rechecking the book to be sure we were headed in the right direction.
After saying goodbye to Karen we continued across the bridge and made a sharp left turn that took us to an asphalt road that eventually turned into a gravel road which had us walking alongside a disused canal and factory. The trail soon becomes a narrow footpath leading us through some very nasty weeds alongside a river that has us fighting off some annoying bugs.
The trail leads us to an old medieval stone bridge which after crossing we join an earth track taking us through a pine and eucalyptus forest. It’s not long before we pass
under the IC-9 motorway where we once again walk alongside the river for a short distance before starting a steep uphill climb.
As we continue walking we decide to take the option to bypass the village of Casais and walk on a dirt path through what is called “scrubland”. As we continue on the path it soon takes us back to a woodland area before winding its way to the road that has us coming to the small village of Soianda. In Soianda we stop at Café Balroa where we eat our sack breakfast and have a cup of coffee.
As we are starting to leave Café Balroa we see two female pilgrims walking into town. We wait for them to arrive at the café and in visiting with them find out they are from England.
Upon leaving Café Balroa we walk pass an old hand pump, beautiful tile mural and another old pump. The trail now takes us back on an asphalt road and it’s not long before we come to a steep hill that leads us into the village of Ponte Ceras.
Upon leaving Ponte Ceras we somehow missed our turn and found ourselves
well off the main trail and ended up at an egg factory called uniCovo. Thank goodness there was a nice young gentleman there that was able to give us directions on how to get to the small village of Areaias. When we reached Areaias we stopped at a café for a cold drink before heading on to Tojal where we reconnect with the trail. While we are sitting at the café in Areaias we take another look at our book and realized we really weren’t lost we just had taken the alternative route.
When we finally reached the outskirts of Alvaiazere we were so tired and hot we stopped in the shade from a house to rest a bit before continuing on. While resting the lady that lived at the house saw us and asked if we would like some cold water which we both said “oh yes”. Don’t remember the lady’s name but in visiting with her we find out she is originally from England and had moved to Portugal where she and her husband were in the last stages of remodeling their home. (failed to get a picture of her). After thanking her for the cold water
we proceeding on and in about another 45 minutes we finally made it to our hotel tired and drained from the day’s heat.
.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.343s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1192s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb