Hi Linda
hoping u might get told 'the best option' from one of the locals or someone that has done this - but looking at Rome2rio.com I see that you could get from Lisbon to SDC by car,bus or train and get a look en route, or fly. But you don't actually need to visit SDC first.
you could fly direct to A Coruna from Lisbon too and you could get a quick bus from there to Ferrol to start your Ingles. Walk your Camino to SDC.
Hope this helps for a start and Buen Camino .
Annie
Every day there is a direct bus from the ALSA company from Lisbon to Santiago.
There is a train connection too via Vigo in the north west of Spain
And a flight connection to A Coruña as been written by Annie from Oz.
From the Santiago busstation MONBUS takes you to Ferrol.
The connection to Fátima is not easy. From Lisbon there is a bus from REDEXPRES
The train is no option because the nearest station is about 20 kms away from Fátima.
An option is to hire a car and drive to Fátima. Parking is no problem there are huge parking lots.
Other option is to take the commuter train from Lisbon to Santarèm and take the bus from there to Fátima. Santarèm has a comfortable hostal, Santarèm hostal, wellknown by the pilgrims on the Portuguese caminho and to Fátima..it is in the towncenter close by the tourist information .The station is about 15 minutes walk from the center.
My wife and I walked from Ferrol to Santiago and on the same trip we visited among others Fátima but did that with our own car. a bit difficult for you
We walked the caminho Portugues twice ,once from Lisbon and met many pilgrims to Fátima who have the habit to walk the shortest way to the choose to walk aside busy roads on hardshoulders.
If you are in Fátima you are close by another famous world heritage place, Tomar.
There is the world famous convento the Cristo , a famous Templars convent and castle on the to of a hill Very beautifull.
I do not know how much time you have but also the city of Braga nearby Porto has another world heritage place, the famous bom Jesus do Monte church. Worthwhile to visit.
Coming May we want to walk from Lisbon to Fátima on the so called camino do Mar but after arriving in Fátima we directly take the bus to Santarèm. Fatima does not appeal to us. For us it was a bit disappointing but that is our personal opinion.
http://lisbon-portugal-guide.com/lisbon-transport/Lisbon-to-Fatima-Transport.html
