Day 3 – Vila Franca de Xira to Azambuja – 20km/12.4 miles
Today was similar to yesterday in that the walking included a good amount of pavement and developed areas. Portugal does its best to route the path around these areas but there’s only so much they can do in this part of the country. It was also drizzling rain most of the day once again, but with the coming forecast being sunny and hot I’ll take it. There were some nice wheat fields mixed in to make the the road walking a bit nicer to look at fortunately.
The developed areas gave way to gigantic rice fields as far as the eye could see, these were pretty impressive looking being lushly green. I didn’t know Portugal grew so much. There is a rail line that runs north and south that we’ve been paralleling and we followed it towards the town. It’s crazy too think that a train going past you at 100mph covers the same distance in 10 minutes that I cover in five hours. Once again it was only about four hours of walking before reaching the final stop for the day which meant plenty of time for a nap, lunch and wandering before dinner. After you’ve done a few of these walks, you get back into rhythm quickly. Azambuja itself is another nice town with picturesque streets and a leaning smokestack with storks on top. I stayed in the municipal albergue which was sparse, but for 5 Euros who can complain. The host was very nice and accommodating for us. This was the last of the easy days as we enter a stretch of 30km days with more heat and elevation. Hopefully the body is ready for those!
