Day 18 - to Condeixa-a-Nova

To Santiago de Compostela: 387 km
Walked today: 16 km
Total walked: 275.6 km

Early start, up at 5:30 am to catch a bus to Conteixa-a-Nova.  We decided to skip today's walk to have time to visit Conimbigra, the ruins of an ancient Roman city.One of Portugal main archeological sites. 

The bus left us in the outskirts of the town of Condeixa, we walked a couple of kilometres into town.  We knew there was an expensive hotel that Brenda had checked in the internet and was very pricey.  We asked for the other places listed in the book bit npome seemed to know where they were so we ended at the expensive one.  We went in and asked the price, it was too much, so somehow we bargain and we got half a price.  We were told that breakfast is from 8 to 10 am.  So we said we cannot have tomorrow because we leave at 6 am but can we have our tomorrow's breakfast now and he agreed.  So we had a good brunch.

We were planning to walk the 2 or 3 km to Conimbriga but we met an English couple at breakfast, David and Suzanna, they were very impressed to learn that we were walking to Santiago de Compostela.  We talked and talked and then they insisted in driving us to the site so reluctantly we accepted.

The city of Conimbriga is of course ruins but there are very notable mosaics that have been preserved.  The most important constructions include the house of the fountains, the forum, the thermal baths and the city walls that are 4 metres thick.  The city flourished between the I and V centuries.

After spending the morning walking around the ruins we decided to go to the restaurant for a drink and surprise! All our friends from two nights ago were there: Antja from Germany, Claire from Ireland and Amira and  Kali from NY. It was great, we had time to chat and enjoy the company.

After that we walked to town, walked a bit around downtown Condeixa, we went into a store that had little girl dresses.  We started to talk with the lady that runs the store and we made another friend, lots of fun, our conversations in Portuñol are hilarious.

We also visited the church, Igreja Matriz, it has a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, so to tonight we ask her to protect our family and in particular our grandchildren.  Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners.