Day 11 - Look deep into nature…

“Look deep into nature, and then you will start to understand everything better”—-Albert Einstein

Today we went from Ribeira de Alcalamouque to Conimbriga, which is famous for its Roman ruins. Despite the rain, it was a good walk, a combination of the body getting used to the daily challenges I am putting it through and the hills were not as steep.

We ran into more pilgrims today, but a few that we see frequently. 2 girls from the Netherlands, La from South Korea, and Jan from the Netherlands.

Tonight we are at an auberge with 10 beds and luckily we reserved 2 beds this morning because they are full and our friend from South Korea had to keep walking. But our other fellow pilgrim Jan is here. We met him on the first day of the Camino and said if we ever happened to be at the same place we would share a bottle of wine. So tonight Jan, Arlene, and I went out to dinner and shared some wine. Jan told us all about his life and his husband back home. He is nurse anesthesiologist and has done the Camino a few times before but never the French Way. He prefers the other routes because they are less populated with pilgrims

The weather was quite chilly today and rainy. Cafes or restaurants on this section are very hard to find, so you pack a lunch, but with this weather you do crave a hot tea to warm yourself up. So it was a pleasant surprise to come across a rest stop on a country road that offered hot coffee, tea, and biscuits for a donation. The stop was actually a memorial to the 3 children of Fatima and former pilgrims volunteer to greet people on the Camino and offer them a place to sit for a bit and have some refreshments.

Tomorrow we head to Coimbra which used to be the capital of Portugal. We also plan on taking a rest day which I am looking forward to!Read more