We had another long, hot day of walking on Thursday, September 1st, this time walking almost 22 miles over some very steep terrain. According to our pilgrim’s guide for this stage, we climbed more than 4400 vertical feet. By the end of the day, we were VERY hot, tired and sweaty.
Met a few more pilgrims along the way and at dinner tonight, but the pilgrim numbers along this portion of the Portuguese Camino are nothing compared to the number of pilgrims we encountered every day on the French Camino. Miguel had told me that only @ 3,000 pilgrims travel the Lisbon to Porto portion of the Portuguese Camino each year. It’s amazing what a difference this makes! Hearing other pilgrim’s stories and sharing experiences along the way makes for a comraderie that has certainly been lacking to date.
Although hilly, the paths today were varied, alternating between town pavement, quiet country lanes, cobblestones, earth tracks, woodland paths and ancient Roman roads. By far, the ancient Roman roads were the toughest to navigate, especially when walking downhill! Needless to say, we were quite happy when we finally came to the sign for the town of Alvaiázere.
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