The knees don’t like it!

Breakfast in this pension was a step back in time. There were no knives, one had to break bread and use a butter knife to butter it. We haven’t seen those in years.

 

Then it was out the door and start dicing with festhing the road. At the Edge of town was a lovely old church.

The sun was up and smiling on or pilgrims but walking on the road with the traffic was a real pain! 

At last we left the road and started to climb.

This was the enjoyable part though inwardly Alan was complaining his feet hurt and the climbs were doing his knees in!

All this pain, for pilgrims must suffer, was compensated by the quiet and the views over the countryside.

At one point the Way was marked with a stone arrow.

In this puddle the frogs had been busy!

But we fear the sun will eventually evaporate the water and then the tadpoles will have a real problem! 

Part of the Way was a steep and stony climb, but we took it slowly and were rewarded at the top with fine views over the countryside.

Alan’s knees though did not like it. The left one started hurting and what he has not said till now is that his feet in the new shoes have been killing him since Lisbon! 



They stopped for a rest and Alan took his shoes and socks off to check his feet. Yesterday he had re-laced his shoes, but the ties still hurt, though the pressure over the top of the foot was better. Rianne now suggested an adjustment which worked wonders!

The feet felt better but the knees still didn’t like it!


They walked through eucalyptus plantations until eventually they came back to civilisation in Grou and then had to walk on roads again and dodge the traffic.

One house had a very elaborate front gate!

Others had works of art in their gardens.

In Asseceira we came across a communal washing place, which we had not seen since Spain!

Then, since we were in civilisation we came across  a bit of ancient history and to the relief of our humans a café!

In this Café they had a rest and met some new pilgrims from New Zealand. Alan is always excited when he meets a Kiwi. They were Murray and Candice on their first pilgrimage!

Rianne had a Snicker which had a Pele sticker inside and gave it to Alan for Christopher, who is football fanatic. 

As they left the village there were lovely flowers to photograph.

Later they caught up with the French Ladies, Colette and Christine who kindly gave up the seat for them.

Then later they came across a whole bank of lovely flowers.

Just one kilometre from Tomar they stopped here for a rest as they could sit properly. The Kiwis were also here and before moving on Alan gave them his card to stay in touch.

We were all relieved to reach Tomar and now our stupid BBF made a fatal error. He told the French Ladies he knew where they were staying and showed it to them on the map! 

Off they went until they reached this street the main one in the centroid town! Only he had got it wrong, for he had planted a waypoint pin here when he thought they were going to stay in a popular hostel. Sadly it was full and they had to go somewhere else, but he had not deleted his waypoint! The outcome was that they had to walk back they had come for about a kilometre as they had passed it on the way in!!!

Antonio was the owner of this hostel and a proud resident of Tomar. He proceeded now to give the pilgrims a lecture about the history of his town in great detail! When you are hot and sweaty after a 16 odd kilometre walk, have knees that ache and feet that are killing you, the last thing you need is a history lecture! 

Our BBF after about 30 minutes of this interrupted him in full flow and asked to be shown to his room!

Now we were happy too, for we have no time for humans who are full of themselves!

We are going to stay here two nights. We are going by bus to Fatima tomorrow while Rianne has a rest day!