April Sun is Burning
It is not even summer but it is hot! Pilgrims start early already, that is 6:00 to avoid the burning sun in the afternoon. And we can eat outside again! How lovely. Even late around 20:15, it is still 22 degrees! Sometimes we eat late, when we have to go to swimming in Ansiao. Pilgrims who slept at our place, will know it is quite a distance to Ansiao!
Secret Guy Raz
A home made yoghurt for this Israelian guy on the pic above. Raz is his name, and means secret in his ‘old’ language, that must be Hebrew, and is used in poems. On his caminho he is going to visit friends in Viseu. He was not interested in my information that he could walk the caminho to Viseu too. At least five or six days from here. It is the caminho Interior that I did. He will just take a bus from Porto back and forth.
Karen for Santiago
Karen, my friend finally did it. She was always hesitant to start walking the caminho. Instead she may have dreamed about it. She was asking me and the Chief Pilgrims Wife all questions about the mysterious caminho. With all the information and her thorough research of the path, really passing it and looking for places to sleep, she just finalised her caminho to Fatima: Ansiao-Freixianda-Seica-Fatima. Now she is in love with the caminho.
Planning for the following stages
She is planning again and has the next goal: to walk part of the caminho to Santiago in shorter paths, and with her Marc as backup. He is going by car to not miss out on the caminho. He is not able to walk long distances and is happy to drive with Karens’ backpack! So Karen has her own Top-Santiago man!
From Fatima she will carry further from Fatima to Tomar, and then with the Santiago signs, up to Coimbra. On the photo above, she is training and we walk from Casa da Lima via the Chief Pilgrims Refuge to Conimbriga. She arranged Jaap-Willem to pick us up.
When we stop at our friends place, she arranges with Chief Pilgrims Wife to walk the next stage, that would be to Coimbra.
“No too far”, she replied. It is more than 30 km.
“When starting in Conimbriga, it is not too far”, I said.
Karen adds: “I will pick you up by car, we go to Conimbriga and walk. In Coimbra we’ll take a taxi back.”
So I guess the next stage of Karen will happen soon!
Yum Restaurant Conimbriga!
We have a nice lunch in the restaurant Conimbriga! I really recommend this restaurant. It is more expensive than the local restaurants around us, but the food is also more special, they also serve it on beautiful plates, the restaurant has a lot of popsicles for on the way! Make sure you don’t miss out.
