Day 9 - To Santarem

To Santiago de Compostela: 523.7 km

Walked today: 19.2 km

Total walked: 120.6 km

There were quite a few pilgrims at the Hostel.  We saw 5 French pilgrims, two German young girls, a young Italian couple and the Virginians: Anne Marie and Lee Ray.

We started the day by taking a ride with Mario and the  Virginian ladies back to Porto de Muge.  Where we stopped yesterday.   Most of the walk, about 15 km, was along tomato and vines fields.   No much shade, no sources of water, no towns with cafés.  

Today the temperature is expected to go up to 34 C, so we were trying to finish before the afternoon heat.  We managed to do about 17 km in just over 4 hours.  Very fast for us.

We were back at the hostel about noon.  As we arrive, Annie, the nurse from Sweden, Also arrived. Annie and I have been in touch thrugh the pilgrims forum.  I knew she was one day behind us.  It is really nice to meet her in person.  Later as we left for lunch we saw Rudy, the young Dutch we met a couple of days ago. I think he will be staying in the same hostel with us.

We had a little walk, had lunch, bought blister pads and went to the cathedral to get our pilgrim credentials stamped.

This is the hottest part of the day so we are resting.  Mario heard yesterday that I wanted to try the typical dish of Portugal: bacalao so his wife, Teresa is preparing this dish for us for supper. Very nice of them.

The pictures below from today shows the trail, a field of Poopsie's, workers planting tomatos, they told is they had 35000 seedlings to plant today and Santarem on the distance. It seems to be very close bit you walk and walk and does not seem to get any closer.  When we finally got there we had a very steep hill to climb.

Satarem people are  proud of the architectural wonders of their churches. They called it the Gothic capital.  Today we visited the Sé cathedral de Na Sra da Coceição and the Igreja da Na Sra da Piedade.  Very different from the churches we saw in Spain.

Hail Mary full of grace. Our Lady of the immaculate Conception pray for is.