Tomar or Freixianda?
2 August 2025
Tomorrow it will be 39 degrees Celsius. Jaap-Willem likes to change the plan: Walking from Fungalvaz to Freixianda 20 km instead of 13 km to Tomar, and then another 25 km to Freixianda (We parked our car in Freixianda). Tomar is a must for pelgrims and the route is worth it, but we know the place, so we decide to have a resting day on the hot Sunday!
If you are anxious to walk a caminho to Fatima to? Read the next page here, contact us, you will not regret it.
Google Path to Freixianda
We step out of our caminho and follow a google path.
Good bye stunning views and historic paths, hello asphalt streets of Portugal.
It is not that bad, because the villages are small, there is almost no traffic. Besides, we leave at 6:00. Nobody on the road! We need to cross a high way. Google shows it, but we don’t see where there is a road. There are only branbles but there must be a tunnel. We just see a lot of bamboo. When I walk through it I see a long tunnel with light at the end! It takes a while to enter the tunnel, and afterwards we need to climb up to the street, which is difficult with all the greens growing there. But this is our reflection of the day: There is light at the end of the tunnel!
We see one cafe somewhere in the middle so we have a short coffee-break. When we enter Freixianda again we have a drink in the large cafe and bakery next to the superarket and square. They have fresh orange juice, finally I also drink something! We are early since the asphalt makes you walk fast! It is 12:00 and we drive to the supermarket before heading home.
Don’t walk on your Google map. The road is not nice, and if you are just visiting Portugal, walk the paths the BBC celebs walked and I described before! Today was a walking day back to our car.
Continue to Santiago de Compostela
This is the connecting dot! I needed to walk the Fatima caminho again to find this out.
The blue arrows will turn to yellow ones from Fatima to Tomar. And then you walk your caminho to Santiago de Compostela. First doing the fully arranged caminho to Fatima and then up to Santiago I would say you have the most quiet and serene part of the ‘caminho Portuguese’. May be skip the part from Coimbra to Porto, This is what my Portuguese friend from Moinho do Cubo always says to me. I agree, but I will not tell that to pilgrims who are already on their way.
On your caminho from Coimbra- Condeixa to Fatima Casa da Lima will take care of you. Afterwards when you walk to Santiago de Compostela by yourself, you pass Casa da Lima again before moving on to Coimbra. We’d love to hear your experiences from Tomar to Casa da Lima!
