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Several years ago, I read a history of Lisbon called ‘Queen of the Sea’ by expatriate journalist Barry Hatton. The book is essentially a hagiography of the Portuguese capital, extolling its ‘special appeal’ and ‘exotic flavour’ at every turn.
But after absorbing 342 pages of this...
The official website for the CP (including central, coastal and littoral) is running a photo contest at the moment with 12 winning photos to be used in a 2024 calendar, and prizes from Decathlon involved as well.
The instructions are in Portuguese but it's fairly easy to follow: you just enter...
Tomorrow Wendy and I are starting not quite a Camino de Santiago, but a walking adventure nevertheless: the Caminho Real 23 on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
The caminhos reais (royal paths) are a series of paths linking population centres in Madeira that were created before automobiles and...
This popped up in my memories today so I thought I’d share it. It’s from six years ago today as Wendy and I were in O Pedrouzo about to finish the Camino Francés. Ah, to have that ‘first camino feeling’ again!
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Camino de Santiago, Day 38. For most of the last 38 days, the mythical city of...
Day 1 — Lisbon to Cascais: ~26km
To celebrate our newly-minted citizen status, today @Wendy Werneth and I embarked on a Portuguese rite of passage by starting our pilgrimage to Fátima.
The route we chose, the Caminho do Mar, officially starts in Estoril but we decided to add an extra day by...
An article in the New York Times today about excavations at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome contains this nugget:
Here is a gift link to read the entire article without a subscription:
Ancient Roman Road’s Beginning Will Remain a Mystery for Now
P.S. @Wendy Werneth and I were married across...
As many people are starting to plan their 2023 caminos, and there seems to me (anecdotally) to be quite a bit of interest in the Portuguese route from Lisbon this year, it seems worth pointing out that there will be a large festival in Tomar this July.
It's the Festa dos Tabuleiros ('Festival...
Just for fun, here’s my year in steps. This is the highest daily average of steps that I’ve had in a calendar year.
Worst month: February, when I spent most of the month in the so-called ‘closed loop’ of the Winter Olympics in China in temperatures as low as -23 degrees Celsius.
Best month...
For the last stage of the Vía Serrana from Utrera to Seville (also the last stage of the Vía Augusta), there are two different routes: one via Dos Hermanas (the western-most one on the map) and the other via Alcalá de Guadaira (the eastern-most one).
Does anyone have any insight on either of...
Well, that all happened fast!
As of a week ago, I was planning to head to the Canary Islands in early December to walk the three-day Camino de Gran Canaria. But a TAP cabin crew strike scheduled for the day I was to return home and TAP’s lack of flexibility on rescheduling meant that I ended up...
A researcher at a university in Vila Real, Pedro Azevedo, has posted a survey on the CPI. If you would like to help him by filling it out, go to this link and request access (it's a google form).
Well, this is something different! After walking several caminos in Spain and Portugal in the last few years, today I started walking the Via di Francesco in Italy. It’s a pilgrimage of about 500km centred around the life of St. Francis of Assisi, starting from a sanctuary in La Verna, Tuscany...
I just spent seven days walking from Porto to Vigo on the Portuguese Coastal / Senda Litoral. For anyone interested, here are some daily musings that I threw together with a photo for each day.
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Day 1: A pre-dawn departure from Porto and it’s exciting to be back on the camino and to walk...
A new albergue is being outfitted in Sabroso. Those responsible have set up a Google docs survey to ask what pilgrims want in an albergue (types of beds, bedding, kitchen facilities, washing facilities etc).
If you would like to fill out the survey but don't read Portuguese, a browser machine...
While Wendy is slaving away at work in Montreal this week, I am excited to start walking the Salvador tomorrow with my friend Darin. It’s his first camino but he’s an avid hiker - we met on the first day of the Torres del Paine circuit in Chile, and we later did a two-week walk together in the...
What is the camino you most want to do? I tend to choose caminos to walk based on season and available time, which means not always choosing the one I most want to do.
If I had to name just one, it might be the Camino Mozárabe.
Andalucía is one of my favourite places in the world but I have...
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