El Camino del Santiago (Not the car)
I first learned about the walking pilgrimage when it was referenced in a novel I was reading at the time. It caught my attention since I have always enjoyed hiking and walking long distances. At the time I thought there was a singular route like with the Appalachian Trail. I even watched a documentary about a group of pilgrims hiking el Camino on PBS.
To my great delight, two friends from Vermont informed me this past spring that they would be hiking a section of el Camino during September. So cool! They were going to be near us and I could visit...but wait. They said they were hiking a section along the coast of Portugal. It was this time that I discovered that there are many routes to el Camino.
Not long after arriving in Zaragoza our family was taking an exploratory walk and we came upon a shell shaped marker in the sidewalk See above). It was a marker for pilgrims to follow when walking el Camino. I had no idea that path came through Zaragoza. How cool.
To dig deeper into the all the branches of the pigramiges follow this link. I have it set to show starting in Zaragoza but the site has information on multiple paths including the one in Portugal. The site is in Spanish but most browsers have a translate option. El Camino info
Our friends seemed to have a magnificent time. Beautiful scenery along the Portuguese coast including the beach goers. The photos they have shared are gorgeous and inspire my inner hiker to head out on the el Camino and drag my mostly willing family with me.
A long Girls weekend in Portugal
My friends stayed a few extra days to enjoy Porto and Lisbon after hiking for a week. So, I jumped a train to Madrid then hopped on a flight to Lisbon. (That is fun to say. I just popped over to Portugal for the weekend 😁 Also it took about the same amount of time as it takes to get to Chicago from Louisville)
Pasteis de nata (Pictured above) were on my daily menu. They are a traditional custard cream pie of Portugal. The crust is flaky more like a croissant than a pie dough. They appeared to be everywhere but the best ones I ate were from
The Fabrica de Nata. We also indulged in Pizza ( maybe the best pizza I have had in my entire life)
Pizza M'arrecreo The wait was long and they got one of the pizzas wrong on the first try. But the waitstaff were nice, and brought us some amazing hot sauces to try and the pizza was great. I give the food in Lisbon a double thumbs up. We stumbled upon a super cute vegetarian place for lunch one day and hiked up an alleyway of stairs for sushi on the last night.
I had been to Lisbon in '97 but only for 1 day, So it was great to get to see the city and enjoy it with friends too boot. My cab driver from the airport spoke fluent Spanish (a rarity as most Portuguese people that I engaged with spoke English as their 2nd language. My friends recommended that I attempt English before Spanish out of politeness) and gave a me a nice little tour of the city on the way to the hotel.
We did one of the hop on hop off tourist buses the second day. All I can say is that Lisbon is was full of surprises for me. First it is VERY hilly. Think San Francisco style hills. So much so they had funiculars. We rode one to dinner the 2nd night. Another big surprise was amount of TukTuks. I believe they are mostly in the tourist areas but still interesting.
The 3rd day we hopped on a local train and headed out to the nearby town of
Sintra One of my friends said it was a must visit. It was located higher in the hills making the weather cooler and gorgeous. The roads up to castles were narrow and full of switchbacks...I was soo glad that we were on a bus and not driving. The side walks along the roads were soo narrow and backed by stone walls that people had to flatten themselves against the walls as the busses passed. Were there the first weekend in October not during the height of tourist season and Sintra was packed. Absolutely worth the visit. We only took in one castle and a bit of the town. But I would go back to see another one of the castles.
We all headed out the next day. My friends unfortunately had to deal with the headache of a canceled flight but they prevailed and made it back to the US on the right day if not to the right city.... Its all part of the adventure I suppose. My flights were uneventful, I was able to jump onto an earlier flight via standby and onto an earlier train and got home 4 hours ahead of schedule. The thing that I found most interesting is that the only two people who looked at my passport, glanced at the picture to verify that I was the same person listed on the ticket. That happened at the train station in Zaragoza to be granted access to the high speed train and by Air Europa when they switched my flight. I was not sent through customs on my way into or out of Portugal. As a person who's paperwork is still in process it was honestly a bit of a relief.
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