Last night was not my favourite.

Our accommodations were to be found in a less than savoury area of Coimbra. We had to walk up some narrow, winding alleyways covered in graffiti and littered with broken beer bottles, etc…

The hostel was across from a depressed looking warehouse and from that warehouse came an incessant, deep, pulsing beat. It started in the evening and carried on All. Night. Long.

The dark, unsettling sound which only stopped in the morning around 6:15 was followed by a great deal of shouting and commotion. Then peace. A few moments later the church bells began to ring from lower down in the town. I don’t think I was ever so happy to see morning and hear the lovely bells.

I barely sleep all night and the unfortunate fact was that we had to walk about 33 km on this particular day. It rained off and on all day.

Then we met a dog. There have been lots of dogs along the way so far. But this one in particular we won’t ever forget I’m sure. He was not a friendly dog. He was determined that we would not take a step further. He was barking ferociously at us and kept running back and forth in front of our path. If we tried to move forward he would run at us barking and snarling. I was so scared. The girls and I each started praying silently. I was praying that someone would come and help us and Daisy was praying to St. Roch and St. Francis. This situation carried on for what seemed like an eternity…then all of a sudden a car drove up and began honking at the dog. It scared him away for a moment but as soon as the car passed the dog came back at us. The driver came back around, put his window down and shouted something in Portugués at the dog. The dog passively turned around and trotted obediently back to his home. It was astounding! Deo Gratias, our prays were answered and the Way was clear.

We were exhausted, rattled, hungry and soaked by the time we reached our accommodations at close to 7pm. We were so happy to collapse in our beds that night.

We arrived in Coimbra on this day. Coimbra is apparently the third largest city along the Camino Portugués. As we walked into the centre we were awed by the church facades and beautifully coloured buildings. Everything looked so pretty.

We spent some time looking through a couple of the big churches and convents. One of the churches was playing Gregorian chant and it was so peaceful that we just sat there for a long time imagining how it would have been when it was originally built. A holy place filled with religious vocations. Alive and filled with the praises of God. Now, it is not much more than a museum. So sad.

Tomar was our next stop. What a fascinating place! I would call it home of the Knights Templars (of old). There are traces of Templar history everywhere in the town. From the architectural details on the buildings and sidewalks to the towering castle up on the hill top overlooking the medieval town.

I would love to go back and spend more time exploring. The culture and traditions seem so rich and unique. We only had to time to go through the castle and adjoining convent. It was mind blowing. So incredibly beautiful.

Today we went to visit the village area where the children of Fátima lived. We toured through their houses and saw the beds they died in.

We also walked to the spot where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the children. We didn’t have much time to linger unfortunately as we had to travel to our next stop in Tomar.

Fátima

We enjoyed a rest day in Fátima today. I was very thankful for a day off from walking since my knee has been bothering me and my leg is very swollen.

We started the day by doing our laundry and picking up a few grocery items on the way back to our room. It is always so nice to clean our few items of clothing. They get so dirty and dusty from the road and sweaty!

We then went to visit the churches. There is a tiny chapel built on the site of the miracle of the sun, then there is the basilica and a new giant monstrosity of a building (church in name).

We were very unimpressed and disappointed by all the modern construction and art work. I don’t think we are alone because there was barely a soul praying in the big monstrosity, everyone was gathered in the beautiful basilica. Our hearts are meant to seek after beauty and that which raises our hearts and minds to the Ultimate Beauty of God. Try as they may the modernist will never be able to change that.

We prayed our rosary and lit candles for all of intentions, the mission, friends and family. We did a bit of shopping to bring back tokens of our time here on this Holy site.

After supper we went to the main square for the candlelight procession.

The walk to Fátima was another 30 km day. It was long and we were of course very tired by the end of the day but it was a pleasant walk. We passed through a variety of landscapes and the scenery was changing all along the way. The temperature was warm but not excruciatingly hot due to the cloud cover.

The day also passed relatively quickly because we had the pleasure of walking with and getting to know a nice couple from Croatia. They were the only pilgrims we saw the entire day.

We didn’t have any time to explore Fátima in depth when we arrived. It was late and we were too tired. But tomorrow we will have a full day here. Upon first glance it appears very touristy.

We decided that today we would walk a shorter distance since yesterday was so challenging. It’s important to know when to push ahead and when to go slow in order to complete the journey rather than go home early due to injury or some other reason. The girls have been repeating the slogan that our boss, JF, at the orchard taught them during apple picking season…”it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon!”.

It was a much more relaxed day on account of the lower kilometres to be covered. The girls were gathering flowers and singing again along the way…we made the right choice!

We walked through the lovely Portugués country side. The road was lined with acres of olive trees. We felt nestled and shaded by them. Our hearts were full.

When we arrived at our accommodation for the night we were informed that the power was out not just in Portugal but all across parts of Europe. They said that this kind of thing doesn’t normally happen and gave us some scary reasons as to what might be going on…enemy submarines in Spanish waters and such!!! Of course my mind always goes to the wildest extreme…I started thinking that we were probably over here with nothing but a backpack and WW3 was about to break out!!! Great!!!

Fortunately, the power came back on about an hour ago and I have stopped internally hyperventilating!!!! lol!!!

I can pretty much only muster up the energy to throw out some statistics…

Weather: so sunny and super hot

Distance walked: 33.3 long, hot kilometres

Road conditions: dry, dusty, long, hot

Pilgrim condition: just bearly hanging in!!!

Hahaha…

In case you didn’t get the drift though, today was an incredibly difficult day. It was long, hot and very tiring. We were continually putting on sunscreen and almost just as quickly sweating it off! We were quite literally frying in the intense Portugal sun and there was no relief from it. No shade. Just a long, dusty road through miles and miles of grapevines. Poor Kate was feeling sick to her stomach and was wilting. We ran out of water part way through the day and there was no where to buy or fill up our bottles until the very end when we reached our destination, Santarem.

When we reached Santarem, a quaint medieval town/city on a hilltop, we were surprised to run into a large Procession of people going through the streets. We didn’t know what was going on but figured it must have been some kind of Catholic occasion as the streets were beautifully decorated with pictures made with flowers and leaves. We soon discovered that it was a special procession that has been taking place each year on this date for hundreds of years to commemorate the miracle of the bleeding Eucharist. They have the special Eucharist in a monstrance and it is carried through the streets then adored back at the Church of the Holy Miracle. We were so delightfully surprised to arrive at just the right time and date to catch a bit of this history and tradition.

The girls and I were again further surprised when we were invited with a small group of others to go up behind the altar to adore the Eucharist up close. We never got the chance however to get close because we were not willing to remove our head coverings (hats). We tried to explain that we cover our heads in the presence of Our Lord but they did not understand and told us we were being disrespectful…we sadly left rather than put up a fight. Such is the state of the N.O. Church. Some tears were shed.

Today we had a good day walking. The weather was warm with a light breeze.

We met up with a few other pilgrims along the path but otherwise it was a quiet, contemplative sort of day.

We had time to stop and smell the roses and make bouquets for our hats and braids from the vast array of wildflowers growing along the side of the roads.

Our accommodations were quaint and comfortable. The girls were overjoyed that they had their own room tonight…they might be getting annoyed by someone’s snoring!!!! Ooops! The walls of the hostel seemed very thin because we could hear all of the traffic and pedestrian noise late into the night and also very early in the morning. I think I slept a total of about 3 hours.

We had a nice bbq buffet for supper from a restaurant across the road from our room. It felt nourishing after several days of pizza and burgers! And bonus, we had a chance to do our laundry!!! Yah we smell clean again! It’s the little things on the Camino that make your day!!

Last year on the Camino Francis in Spain the path was so well marked with many yellow arrows and shells that it was difficult to lose your way. This time around I was beginning to get a bit concerned because there were next to no markings coming out of Lisbon. We were completely depending on our gps/maps which I don’t really like because my phone battery tends to die very quickly.

So, when we came across our first official Santiago and Fátima arrows we were overjoyed and we may have gone a little overboard taking pictures of them!!! 🤩 The fun thing is you never know where you are going to find the next markings!

It was a beautiful walk today continuing along the river…the breeze is so nice and almost gives us wings!!! ALMOST!!!

We walked approximately 20 km today from Santa Iria da Azóia to Vila Franca de Xira and so we were pretty tired but still in good spirits.

Our food for the day was Brazilian style from the pizza to the truffles!

All in all a good day! Deo Gratias!