Hi Cliff we travelled to Merceana via Torres Vedras, it was a train from Lisbon to there and our plan was to get a taxi in the morning, but Rodrigo from the Fatima friends contacted us and said he would meet us at 7am and give us a lift. He told us afterwards that the best way to get to Merceana would have been to get a train to Villafranca Xira from Lisbon and then get the local bus.
It was a beautiful route with hardly no asphalt until joining the main route from Lisbon, usually on unsealed farm tracks. The welcome we got was totally unexpected, we were being taken to peoples houses for meals, was taken to a Friday night service by Padre Rui and got lots of useful information about the coming days, even an alternative route at Vilanovha de Rainha which avoided the national highway, we still took the highway buts thats a different story.
The Albergue de Peregrinos in Porta da Luz is a work in progress, they have little money but a lot of hard work and love.
I keep checking into their facebook site and they always seemed to have added a little something to it.
We met a peregrina on our first few Km on the main route from Lisbon, my walking partner, Phil, ended up walking all the way to Porto with her, the 69 year old Mary from Ireland, she recently invited us both across to do a 3 day walk on the Kerry Camino. We headed off to Fatima, but would go to Tomar next time, but on that section met two portuguese pilgrims who really were a god send to us, Phil and Mary after Rabacal met quite a few other pilgrims.
A useful contact is
www.caminho.com.pt