My hostel is located on a hill near the castle and last night the noise of planes taking off and landing at the airport was quite intrusive.

Luckily there seems to be a curfew and it was quiet until around 5am. The locals must get used to it I guess.

The morning view from my hostel terrace.

The hostel was quite high up near the castle . Nearby is the Church of Santiago that has a sign outside claiming that it is the starting point of the caminho. Unfortunately it’s rarely open.

A bit farther down the street is a lookout with typical Portuguese blue tiles.

At the bottom of the hill is the Sé cathedral that I visited yesterday with the first yellow arrow for me to follow .

The caminho passes through the Alfama district heading north out of town. ‘Al’ means ‘the’ in Arabic and when this is the start of a place name in Portuguese or Spanish it often means the name has an Arabic origin.

 Alfama comes from the Arabic al-ḥamma (الحَمّة), meaning “hot fountains” or “baths,

A bit further on is a mixture of older residential and industrial areas .

I came across this public facility just in time. The guy cleaning didn’t see me and I got sprayed by his hose!

A bit further on an urban renewal project is underway, and the path runs along the estuary shore.

After around 8 kilometres, I reached the site of the World Expo that was held in 1998 which is now known as the Parque Das Nações.

The Aquarium

Many of the buildings have been retained and now serve new purposes.

At the edge of this area is the 12.3km Vasco da Gama Bridge, the second longest in Europe after the Crimean Bridge.

At this point a guy from Melbourne said hello. It told me that he’d met a Portuguese woman while walking this caminho a few years ago and ended up marrying her. He didn’t want to tell me his name as he said he’s about to become famous and has been advised to keep a low profile .

From here, most of the remainder of the day’s walking was along a new boardwalk that extends for 14km through the estuarine wetlands.

It made for fast walking, but it was quite hot out in the sun with no shade. The boardwalk eventually ‘came ashore’ for a while then for the last few kilometres I was in outer suburbia looking for the ‘Purple Spa’ that I mentioned in my previous post..

I’d had a few problems communicating with them as they were using a translator that produced some funny results and I had trouble getting in but eventually got to my room .

The place sems to be in process of being converted from previous usage and via a translation program I was told that was the reason why my door has no lock!

The decor does make you wonder.

I went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and had a nice chat with the owner whose English is quite good. I had an €11 (18AUD) meal. He’s Paolo, his wife is Paolinha and I’m Paul!

My walk today was longer than I had estimated at 26km and my feet are a bit tired. Tomorrow is a longer day again to Azambuja.

Here’s my Relive video of today’s walk.

https://www.relive.com/view/vYvrQEzyQLq