Downshift Musings

Vila Franca de Xira

The home of Portuguese bull fighting, V.F. de Xira is a very nice town on left bank of the Tejo River.

Below we are hanging out at a cafe in the town park.

We had an inauspicious start to the day. We went to the train station and realized we had just missed the train we needed. Since it was Saturday, the trains were running on a reduced schedule, so we walked up a really busy road with no shoulder. Nothing was open for breakfast and we ended doing a lot of extra walking until Rich finally found a very nice pastry shop open and conveniently located next to an Aldi supermarket. So at 9 am we finally found ourselves back on the trail, behind schedule and already foot sore.

The next section of the trail was quite nice though. Boardwalk and trail through river wetlands. Lots of folks running and biking the trail and bountiful bird life. We saw so many mamma ducks with their 6-7 ducklings floating up and down the water channels. I took some photos but they didn’t really come out well.

Then a very dangerous section, again on a major road where the shoulder kept disappearing. I would not walk that section again and would advise folks to take the train.

Finally another beautiful riverside park until we reached out destination. Today felt really hard which makes me apprehensive about tomorrow which will be about 10km longer.

We didn’t meet any pilgrims on the trail today, but saw some coming into town a short time ago. Two women who had their backpacks on push trailers. Our bunk mates tonight are both Brazilians from the state of Minas Gerais who are passing time while waiting on their immigration paperwork.

We also met Mohamed Naeem from Pakistan who somewhat randomly ended up here in Vila Franca on a sightseeing trip. He showed us how to get to the city park and talked to us a bit about his travels.