El Camino Portuguese Ansiao to Condeixo a Nova

El Camino Portuguese 

Ansiao to Condeixo a Nova

I had had a bad night for several reasons, one was that I had had a np in the afternoon and so wasn't really tired. There was a mosquito in the room which buzzed around my ears for ages and refused to back off

Lastly there was a downpour outside with rain beating on the windows, amplified by pounding the tin roofs and I don't like walking in the rain which was forecast at over 50% probability to last all day. I was up early to change the schedule to a bus of s taxi but the thunderstorm kept interrupting the internet.

I was having breakfast when everything went quiet. The rain stopped pounding on roofs and windows, the wind calmed and the water rushing down drain pipes eased off to nothing. Somebody up there was looking after pilgrims. I ditched the alternative plans and started walking.

Both EL Camino Portuguese and the Fatima trail follow the sane route out of Lisbon until Santarem and then split. Now one of the alternative Fatima trails from Coimbra to the north uses part of the El Camino Portuguese to go in the opposite direction so the arrows point in opposing directions.

There is a perfectly good road, the N348/7 that runs along the flat bottom of the valley but El Camino has to go over the top or the shoulder of every hill. A pilgrim's route in not meant to be easy, otherwise its just a long walk. We had already climbed up to Netos, down to cross the road and up to Alvorge, down to cross the road and over the shoulder of this hill. The path is visible to the left as it snakes its way up to the shoulder of the hill.

The path dips as if to go towards another hill but skirts the base to return to the road and then back towards the base.

It has been a while since I saw or heard these two stroke motor mower type engines.

One of the few hills that the trail doesn't go up and down.

A local wind mill, the type that Don Quixote (admittedly he was Spanish but the style is seen through the peninsula) might have had a tilt at.

Majestic engineering providing clean energy or an eye sore?

After stopping for morning coffee at Rabacal, it was easy walking along the valley bottom past fields, fruit trees and olive groves. I added two new foods to the hungry pilgrim on the move. One was elderberry but the berries are small and fiddly to remove from the stork.

The other was walnuts, The green aren't mature and the black have rotted so you have to get just the right 'green pithy cover turning to black' to get a decent nut. 

A shrine dedicated to St James in Fonte Coberta.

This is the Ponte Filipino bridge, formerly known as the Fonte Coberla bridge. Spain occupied Portugal from 1580 to 1640 under the Philip kings (I, II and III). There was a period of repairing and building roads and bridges to consolidate the union and encourage trade and easier travel.

This bridge was built on the orders of Philip III of Portugal (Philip IV of Spain), 1636 - 36 by Jose da Fonseca, master builder from Ansiao.

I walked past the ancient Roman ruins of Conimbriga, the largest and best preserved Roman ruins in Portugal and a National Monument. The Romans arrived here in 139BC under General Decimus Junius Brutus and established a town based on a pre-existing Celtic settlement named Briga meaning 'fortified place'. But I was focused on getting to my hotel.