Day 1: The Portuguse Way

Sept 17: I slept in a bit late, probably due to the lingering effects of jet lag, but I got up and was out by 9:30. My plan was to hike the first part of the Camino today, then take a train back to Lisbon and stay at the hostel a second night. I could leave stuff behind and slackpack my first day on the trail. =)

I loved these painted things that boats tie up on! This one looked like a hammerhead shark. Wearing lipstick. =)

The "official" start of the Camino is the cathedral, but I wanted to see more of Lisbon than what was strictly marked as the Camino and I walked in the opposite direction towards the east. I didn't have any maps of this section, but it was along the water so I figured it was hard to get lost. Just follow the Tejo River.

I went as far as the Jerónimos Monastery, a "World Heritage listed Gothic monastery" according to Google. The place was crowded with tourists. Buses hurled them out in massive quantities. It was a pretty area, but I wasn't excited about the crowds.

I didn't take many photos on the walk out since I knew I'd be retracing my steps back, but I declared this point to be my starting point of the Camino. I took a few photos and started the walk back--this time, taking plenty of photos along the way. I wasn't sure where I would start the virtual walk on Walking 4 Fun. Maybe here. Maybe at the traditional starting point at the cathedral. Maybe somewhere else entirely. I hadn't decided yet, but just in case I did decide to start from this point, I needed to take lots of photos.

The walk along the waterfront was lovely but uneventful. After making it back to the waterfront near my hostel, I took a path to the São Jorge castle. It sat at the top of a hill: a fort and a royal residence. The infamous Lisbon earthquake in 1755 severely damaged the castle and contributed to its decay. The earthquake was the part that fascinated me the most. I had recently read a book called This Gulf of Fire about the earthquake and its aftermath. The earthquake, quickly followed by devastating tsunamis and firestorms--swept through almost totally destroying the Portuguese capital. They didn't have seismographs back then, but it was one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history with estimates ranging from 8.5 to 9.0 and killed somewhere between 10,000 to 100,000 people in Lisbon alone. They weren't very good at counting casualties back then! It didn't help that the Portuguese government deliberately downplayed the disaster so as not to look weak fearing potential invasions from other countries.

25th of April Bridge. (That's the name of the bridge. The Portuguese have a common habit of naming stuff after apparently random dates.)

Very little of Lisbon survived the disaster and more than 250 years later, the reconstruction has long been over. But this castle was around during that time. It may have been damaged, but it survived.

I wandered around the castle for a couple of hours, admiring the views, walking along the castle walls, and touring the museum inside, then eventually headed back out and hoofed it over to the cathedral.

At the cathedral, I bought my credencial--the passport I'd have stamped wherever I'd stop for the night or at cafes or anywhere else providing stamps for pilgrims. It included my first stamp already--the cathedral stamp.

Before leaving, I decided to check out the cloisters and treasury room. They cost extra, but when would I be back in Lisbon again? The central courtyard of the cloister is being excavated and shows signs of the Roman, Arab and medieval periods, and I found it immensely interesting to turn back time to see structures created hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The stories these walls could tell....

Back outside, I started following the first yellow arrows--markers that would lead all the way to Santiago. They were often paired up with blue arrows facing in the same direction towards Fatima--another popular pilgrimage site. I wasn't heading to Fatima, but the two routes would overlap for a few days before splitting into different directions.

The trail headed along small city streets that weren't particularly interesting. It seemed like most of the stores I passed were closed, but I wasn't sure why. Because it was Saturday? Maybe everyone went home for lunch? Or maybe they had closed early for the day?

I started my hike from here--and look at the hordes of people! Buses were vomiting them in the hundreds!

I stopped for a bit to watch some sort of festival with groups of people dancing to an accordion. I never did find out what that was about, though, and eventually moved along after watching the festivities for 10 or 15 minutes.

Late in the afternoon, I missed a subtle (but important!) turn and wound up walking in circles for a half hour trying to refind the arrows. Eventually I had to backtrack and found where I had gone astray, cursing myself at the delay. It was getting fairly late in the day by now and I was starting to worry I might run out of daylight before I reached my destination.

Near sunset, I reached the Parque das Nações, the location of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition. Until now, I'd been eating snacks out of my pack all day not wanting to take the time to stop and eat a proper meal, but I was hungry for something other than snacks and there was some sort of American festival going on when I arrived here. They had food trucks serving "American" food--I put "American" in quotes because some of it wasn't exactly what I recognized from the United States. But I figured the food trucks would be quick and easy to grab, eat and go. I couldn't wait long--daylight was fading fast.

So I ordered a hot dog and Coke. The hot dog was covered in something... I wasn't sure what. Fried, stringy things. Potatoes, maybe? The poor hot dog was drowning in it. I ate it anyhow, quickly downed the Coke, then continued the walk. My feet were sore at this point. I may not have been carrying a full pack, but I had covered a lot ground!

I knew the Moscavide train station was nearby and that was where I planned to stop and take the train back into central Lisbon. I figured I'd probably see a sign pointing to the train station, but I never did and by the time I realized, I must have already passed it, I didn't want to turn around and retrace my steps. There was another train station a couple of more miles ahead and it was practically right on the trail. I'd just catch it there instead.

Walking back towards the April 25th Bridge.

By now, the sun had definitely set and the sky was darkening fast. I was going to finish in the dark. Dark dark--not that "sunset dark" stuff. Taking photos became a difficult chore because I could no longer hold my camera steady enough to take in-focus photos. I would have to set my camera on a bench or something and start the 10-second delay timer to get photos. It was slow and laborious.

From the Expo area, the trail headed out onto a nice boardwalk along the river and away from civilization so even lights became rare. I hoped walking around this part of the city was safe at night, because I was definitely walking around at night now. I didn't see anything that made me suspicious of my safety, but I was in unfamiliar territory.

I finally arrived at the Sacavem train station at around 8:30 in the evening. There was a ticket machine, and I punched the button for English and followed the directions. I needed a card with at least a few euros on it, but everything I tried didn't work. I couldn't get a stupid card to come out of the machine.

A local on his way to the train was passing by me, and I asked if he understood English. He did, and I told him about my trouble figuring out how to work the darned machine. So he gave it a try and it didn't work. Then he tried it with the Portuguese language selected, and the machine still wouldn't give up a card. I'd have been happy to speak with an actual, living person who could issue tickets, but there were none. Just this machine that apparently wouldn't give out cards for people to ride the train.

My new friend said not to worry and pulled out his wallet. He had an extra card which had something like 50 cents left on it, and he'd let me have it. I'd have to reload it with more money, though, which the machine was able to do. I added three euros to the card, then scanned it and waited for the train. I offered to give the man a euro to cover the 50 cents that was still left the card, but he wouldn't take it. Very friendly and helpful!

The route followed this bike path along the way, which separated the two directions of traffic with a row of dots. I'm not sure if the Pac-Man was added by 'vandals' after the fact or was part of the design, but I really liked it! =)

The train arrived maybe 10 minutes later, and I rode it to the Santa Apolonia stop, then transferred to the metro which carried me to the Baixa-Chiado stop--the one nearest my hostel. Made it!

When I got up to the bed in my room, I found a guy sleeping in it. I went back down into the lobby to ask about that. Was he in the right bed? Had my bed been moved to another location? The woman in the lobby checked her records and said I was supposed to be in bed #324--the same one as the night before and that whoever was in my bed was in the wrong bed.

I went back up to the room and woke the guy up. I whispered--there were already other people trying to sleep--and asked him what bed he had been assigned. I didn't mind switching beds with him if he was already comfortable there. Maybe he had picked that bed not realizing that we'd been assigned beds and it was near his friend or something. I didn't know. He could have that one as far as I was concerned, but I needed to know which was his bed so I could take that one and not take someone else's bed!

He insisted that that was the bed he'd been assigned. I disagreed telling him, "I just talked the clerk downstairs and she assured me that it's not."

He didn't seem to believe me, though, and decided to go down there himself to find out what was what. I waited in the room, taking off my shoes but not getting too comfortable just yet. I might still get moved, or take whatever bed the other guy had been assigned. He came back about five minutes later, seemingly angry at me and started moving his stuff to another bed. I offered to take whatever bed he'd been assigned so he didn't have to move, but he was in a huff and kept moving his stuff to the other bed.

Whatever. *shrug* Finally having reclaimed my bed, I went down to the common room where people weren't sleeping to check email and write in my journal. I had taken 51,280 steps for the day--one of my longest days ever! About 25 miles worth of walking! My feet certainly felt like it. It was close to 11:00 at night by the time I could hit the sack. I was exhausted!

More of those painted tie-ups. They are called bollards.

Who! Whow!

Praça do Comércio

Arco da Rua Augusta

Lots of people walking around! =)

Rossio Square

There's a castle up in them there hills! And I intended to find it! =)

View from São Jorge Castle

São Jorge Castle

São Jorge Castle

There were a lot of these neat trolley cars in Lisbon, but I didn't take any. Maybe next time!

Lisbon Cathedral

Inside the Lisbon Cathedral

The cloisters

Excavations in the cloisters--which was the most interesting part for me! Weird to see such extensive excavations on the inside of a cathedral!

Outside of the cathedral, they appeared to be rebuilding the street. A lot of the streets in Portugal are cobblestones! I was impressed with the sheer number of cobblestone streets. They're all over Portugal!

One of the first yellow arrows along the trail marking the route to Santiago!

Some sort of festival where they played an accordion and danced and stuff. Never did figure out what they were celebrating, though.

The yellow arrows often had blue arrows to Fatima beside it--Fatima being another popular pilgrimage site. For the first few days on the trail, the two trails would overlap so I could follow either color arrow to move in the correct direction.

This area was the location of the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition

I like the painted kid pointing to the periodic table! (The kid in the corner of the photo is real, though.)

There's a hot dog somewhere under all those condiments.

This was the Lisbon Expo mascot. He was named Gil, after Portuguese navigator Gil Eanes.

That's the Vasco da Gama tower in the background.

The sun has set and now darkness is fast approaching! gotta finish up the day's hike--pronto!

The Vasco da Gama Bridge goes over the Tijo River, but the trail just passes under it--not over it!

Gotta say, this mural was a little creepy to find while walking down the trail in the dark. *nodding*

The end of the road for me! The train station is at the top of this bridge, just off the left side of the photo. Time to get back to the hostel!

The train I caught into town wasn't very busy.....

Day 0: Welcome to Lisbon, Portugal!

Sept 16: Shortly after sunrise, after a long (overnight) flight from America, my flight started descending towards Lisbon, Portugal. I had a window seat and gleefully looked out the window for my first glimpse of Portugal. This was to be my first time here, so it was somewhat of a momentous occasion for me. It's always fun to visit a country for the first time.

View from the window of my flight as we're about to land in Lisbon. That's the Tejo River that runs through Lisbon.

Outside, I saw mostly endless ocean views before the land became visible. I saw a lighthouse on the coast--quite probably where Cabo da Roca pointed out to the sea. The plane continued to descend--quite low at this point--and I could see traffic moving on the roads. The landscape started looking mostly like farmland, but quickly turned into an urban mass of a bustling city. A long, narrow strip of water I identified as the Tejo River. At least that's what my map called it. Later, I looked at an English map and it called the river the Tagus River. I liked the local name better. I could say Tejo. It's not a particularly weird or difficult word to say.

The ground looked so European. From the air, I wouldn't have been able to tell if I were over Spain or France or Italy.... they all looked the same to me from the air. I could definitely tell it wasn't England, though, since the cars were driving on the correct side of the road. =)

I'd be hiking the Portuguese Way from Lisbon to Santiago, Spain--nearly 400 miles in all--and I knew the route followed alongside the Tejo River for a few days after leaving Lisbon. I'd be seeing a lot more of this river. I had no companions for this hike, although Amanda planned to join up with me further up the trail near Porto and we planned to hike the trail together the rest of the way. That was still a couple of weeks off, though. For now, I was on my own.


The plane soon landed, and our pilot told us that a British Airways plane had taken our usual gate so we'd have to exit on the stairs then be bused to the terminal. I was near the back of the plane and one of the last people to get off, and I stopped for a couple of seconds to take a photo as I emerged from the plane and was quickly scolded for doing so. Photographs, they told us, were strictly prohibited for security reasons.

Which didn't make any sense to me. It's the outside of a plane. What was so sensitive that we couldn't take photos of it? We just had to look at photos online to see what the outside of the plane looked like. Welcome to Portugal--but don't take photos!

An atrium at the airport after I made it through customs and immigration.

I got in the last of the buses, and we were shuttled to the terminal where I entered a long line of people waiting to get through customs and immigration. The line was long, but I figured it would move quickly as they usually did. That was not to be.

It took nearly two hours for me to work my way to the front of the line. Interminably slow. Europeans had a short line and were whisked through in seconds. Why couldn't they move some of the folks on the European line to help out with the non-European line? Most of the authorities on that other line appeared bored stiff waiting for a European to show up.

I became friends with the people in line near me, like a West Virginian couple ahead of me who had come to Lisbon for a vacuum convention. It was a company-wide thing bringing in employees from all over the globe, but they hoped to do a lot of sightseeing while they were in the area.

I also befriended another fellow about 20 people behind me as we passed each other at each "switchback" in the line. (Is there a name for those sharp U-turns in a long line? Because if there isn't one, I think it should be called a "switchback.") He was from Dublin and joked about needing a lunch service like we had on the plane and that he hoped to "never see me again." Alas, that only lasted for 10 minutes until the next switchback. "Drats. It's you again."

"Can't wait to see you again around the next turn!" I replied.

It was a grueling line. They should have provided restroom breaks along the way. Instead, people would leave the line to go to the restroom and have their new friends in line save their place.

Finally I made it near the end of the line and on the last switchback I told the guy from Dublin that I had had enough of him and that I was now going to leave. =)

The guy at the booth took my passport, asked a couple of questions about how long I planned to be in Portugal and what I was doing there (about a month, to hike the Camino de Santiago from Lisbon). He stamped my passport and gave it back and I was free! I was officially in Portugal!

I looked around for directions to get downtown and found a bus, but it was so crowded, I wasn't able to get on the first bus. Or the second bus. Finally, after what must have been close to an hour after leaving customs and immigration, I squeezed myself onto a bus and headed downtown.

When I arrived in Lisbon, I didn't have a reservation to stay anywhere. It wasn't until my flight was already boarding that I was sure I'd be on it. I had been flying stand-by and the flight was full. There was a good chance I might not have gotten on it for several days. I was pleased I got on, but once I was on the plane, I didn't have a chance to make reservations.

But it's a big city! And September 16th--the off-season, right?

The Golden Tram 247 hostel would eventually become my home for the night. I liked the mural on their wall!

The bus stopped before reaching my stop in downtown because a street was closed and some sort of protest going on, so I had to walk an extra five or six blocks. Not a big deal, though. I walked on a parallel street to avoid the protests and chants. I had no idea what the protests were about, but as long as they weren't protesting Americans or tourists or--worse still--American tourists--I wasn't going to worry myself about them. =)

The first hostel I tried said they were full, but that they had a private room available for 70 euros. "I think not," I told him kindly, and left to try another hostel.

The second hostel also reported being full. This started to concern me a bit. Why are all these hostels already full? It wasn't even late in the evening. It was barely after noon! The folks at this hostel, however, suggested that I try a third one a couple of block away, even taking me to a window and pointing down the street to its location.

So I went to the third hostel, and they too told me they were full. Crap.

However, these nice folks suggested that I could use their Internet to search for a place nearby with availability. I logged in and ran a search and noticed that most places were reported as being full, but one hostel a few blocks away still had some space. Awesome! I made the reservation right then and there online. I didn't want those spaces to fill up during the five minutes it would take me to walk there.

I headed to the fourth hostel of the day--this time, the Golden Tram 242. When I arrived, they weren't ready to admit me saying that the hostel rooms were still being cleaned, but that they'd be ready in another hour or so. I could wait in the common room on the second floor if I wanted to, though, which is exactly what I did. I'd rather have walked around Lisbon a bit or grab something for lunch, but I still had all of my luggage with me which I didn't want to lug around--nor did I want to leave it unattended at the hostel.

Also, realizing I had so much trouble finding a hostel with available space today, it occurred to me that I should probably find something for tomorrow night as well. Just in case.... So I booked the hostel for a second night. Better safe than sorry!

View out the window of the hostel.

An hour later, they were ready to officially book me into the hostel, and I took my bed in a room with nine other beds, half of which already looked occupied but nobody else was in the room at the time. I wanted to go out and get something to eat now, but I was also absolutely exhausted from the flight. Jet lag sucks! I ate a few snacks from my pack, then lay down and immediately fell asleep for two or three hours.

By the time I woke up again, it was late in the afternoon. I emptied my pack of a lot of gear I wouldn't need walking around (sleeping bag, ground sheet, etc.) but kept my valuables like the laptop and headed out to get my bearings. I wanted to find the cathedral in particular--the "official" starting point of the Portugal Camino, which I did--then wandered around a bit near the waterfront.

Near dusk, I stopped for dinner at a pizza place before heading back to the hostel for the night. Tomorrow... my hike would begin!

Catedral Sé--and the "official" starting point for the Portuguese Camino in Lisbon.

Arco Augusta, by the waterfront.

My first sunset in Portugal!

I couldn't stay up all night, though.... I had a trail to start walking tomorrow!

Day 5: The Gingerbread Church

The first thing I had to do today was make more frosting after running out yesterday. So I did that and finished up the trim on the church.

As it turned out, I actually forgot to put the white trim on the back edge of the roof, so technically, I hadn't finished it quite yet. I thought I was done, though. Ooops! But I'll fix that overlooked part when I realize I missed it later in these photos....

At this point, thinking the church was done, I started work on the landscaping. I frosted the whole board (it snowed recently!) and added small "bushes" on the sides of the church. There's a lot of plain, boring white on the board, though. We need some more landscaping--with color!

And the church is DONE! I created a few Christmas trees with sugar cones, covered in green icing and little candy rocks pushed into it to act like ornaments. Then added tops to each of the Christmas tree. You'll notice in this photo that I finally realized I had forgotten to put white trim on the back edge of the roof and did it by the time I took this photo. I also added the weather vane at the top. I didn't put it on sooner because it's so fragile and was afraid I'd break it while working on other parts of the gingerbread church. And finally, I sprinkled some powdered sugar over everything to make the roof look like it had remnants of snow. All the ground was covered with snow--it seemed odd that there wasn't a smidgen of it at all on the roof. And presto! It's done! =)

View from another angle.

I think the weather vane at the top is a nice touch. Don't you? It's incredibly fragile, though!

But wait! There's more! The side windows, as you might remember, are supposed to be stained-glass windows. Which look really nice if you put a light inside and turn it on, then off off the lights outside like it was night. And wow! It looked awesome!!!

Another "night" shot, showing more of the front of the church. No stained-glass there, but the light still comes out the small windows.

And one last photo--this time, from the point of view of a dog trapped outside of the church wanting to get in where it's warm and light. =)

I mentioned the books I used to create this little thing, but in case some of you found yourself inspired to actually try making your own (be sure to share!), I'll post the links to the books on Amazon again. The first book has the actual pattern that I used, while the second book has a lot of good techniques and ideas that I used. (It has wonderful patterns for entire gingerbread creations as well.)



And that's it! That's the end of this little "adventure," but stay tuned! Starting next week, we'll be back to the usual adventures of long-distance hiking. Next up: the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney. Look for the first post on Monday!



Just in case you wanted to see it as a video!