Day 1 - Flying out

We are at the airport, waiting for our plane. First to Philadelphia and from there, overnight, to Lisboa. From there we take an Iberia flight right to Lisbon.

This time we are a bit more nervous.  We know how hard it gets, specially the first few days.  Also a bit concerned about the fewer facilities for pilgrims in Portugal and the fact that many of the stages are around 30 km.  That's a bit more that what we want to walk in one day. We'll have to figure out how to do shorter stages.

We found that we are not alone in our travels.  There are four Canadian girls in their 20s going to Lisbon too.  Victoria is traveling by herself  and Emily, Kiley and Carolyn are traveling together. They are a happy bunch.  It is always nice to talk to young pretty girls.

I've been looking up some Lisbon facts.  The metropolitan area has 2.6 million people - a quarter of the country's population.  It is probably the oldest city streets in Western Europe.  It goes back to the Phoenicians.  Celtic tribes moved in later, the Romans, followed by barbarian Germanic tribes.  The moors invaded later on and finally they were chased out in the war of reconquista.  The city was destroyed in 1755 by a terrible earthquake and rather than rebuilding, they demolished whatever was left and started from scratch. Thus, the oldest buildinggs date from the XVIII century.

LIsbon in the place where Vasco the Gamma launch his expedition to India and also the expeditions to Brazil started here.  The golden age for Portugal was the XVI century when their empire was at its peak. I am looking forward to explore this ancient city

We also have plans to meet some fellow pilgrims in the next few days.  Laurie from the U.S. is going to meet us Wednesday, she has written a guide for the Camino Portuguese and she should be able to give us some pointers. She also is going to introduce us to other pilgrims who will be starting around the same time than us.  Annie from Sweden starts one day after we do and Sandy two dayss later.  We will probably meet her too... Soon or later.

Our flight leaves in one hour so I will continue tomorrow.