Wednesday 6th April

28.5 km + 5km extra 🙁 (250.3 km)

Bonus kilometers

Today Robyn set off without me, due to my dithering and taking forever to sort myself and her looking really cold. I set off about 10 minutes later and took the wrong turning almost immediately…I’ve done enough of these Caminos to know to follow the arrows but somehow I missed one and then didn’t notice the lack of them. I retraced my steps, adding an unwanted couple of kilometres onto my route and consequently, it took me a good 1 hour to catch up with Robyn.

Conímbriga

We climbed out of the Rabaçal valley and meandered through hamlets and vineyards, similar to those of past days. Our first stop was in Conímbriga which is an amazing archaeological site dating back to the second century bc. We were there too early for the museum, which the guidebook says is a must-see, but luckily it wasn’t too early for the museum café to be open for a quick coffee and pastel de natal! The site is apparently only 17% excavated at the moment but has already revealed mosaics, baths and an amphitheatre…this is one of the reasons I love these Caminos: there is a whole world out there that I did not even know existed and I get a snapshot which I can keep and maybe revisit at a later date:)

More bonus kilometers

At 17k we reached Cernache and Robyn decided her feet had had enough so off I plodded for the remaining 11km with Robyn safely in a taxi. It was hot, my feet were bothering me and I spent most of the walk on a very busy road. At one point I decided I could find a better route and left the road to investigate a rural option only to have to return half an hour later and 2kms extra onto my walk (2 more to add to this morning’s extras). I eventually arrived in the impressive city of Coimbra. It is like a huge Nice, with beautiful buildings wherever you look, elegant shops and an abundance of churches (of course). The problem here is that I want to go and be a tourist but my bloody stumps of feet demand that I either walk to a nearby restaurant or lie down until I have to walk again. So, as I have said on every Camino, I’ll be back…