Caminho Português: Day 1
Out of Lisbon
Ai, ai, ai! My feet! ~17 miles today has gotten us up the Tejo estuary a way. An interesting day, but rather too long. We walked out of the historic district through the Alfama district with its twisted little streets.
Eventually finding the river again after much tromping and traffic avoidance.
There was a very pleasant waterside section at the Parque das Nações, built for the 1998 Expo and soon to host the Catholic Youth gathering in August. The park boasts an aquarium, sky tram, the Basco de Gama tower, and many recreational areas.
Unfortunately the new bridge for the Camino shortcut up the coast is still being completed so we had to take the inland route which adds a lot of miles. We walked for several hours directly under the landing path for the Lisbon airport, along a small river.
Finally, after a stretch of 7 km with no towns it was time for lunch!
Rich ended up with stuffed squid and I got some sort of bony grilled beef. It was good. Bread, olives, and espresso included. 10 euros for the menu do dia.
We’ve met two other pilgrim couples today. One set was from Italy, but we had no language in common with them. At lunch we met an Australian couple from near Melbourne so Rich was able to talk to them about his stay in Melbourne and we had passed through their town when we toured the Great Ocean Road back in 2018.
We got some well wishes from strangers on the way. I got to have one nice little conversation with a gentleman who stopped us on the boardwalk to wish us well. Folks were very helpful. We needed to take a train back toward Lisbon for one station to get to our lodging for tonight. A sweet young woman helped us out, unfortunately to the wrong platform. After asking 2 more people I got us on the correct train. Whew! My Portuguese is coming in handy.