There wasn’t a distance I could confidently complete – ie. ending up in a village with lodgings or a train station – so we decided on a ‘two village walk’. We looked in on a 16th century church with its tiled walls of the same era in this ancient settlement dating back to Roman times. The station of Azambuja continued the blue tile theme, as did many of the shops and residences. The same white and black patterned tiles continued to lead us around another village to a park of tiny hills.

I looked skyward as birds cast speckled shadows on the grass and there was a tall unused chimney stack, well not exactly. There was now a squatter proudly displaying her tenant rights untouchable by human hands. Storks, that we saw so many of in Spain, were now displaying their same dominance here in Portugal where over 8000 pairs are presently building their nests high up in the sky.

The silent shadows turned into other storks, flying back and forth from their nests on the top of a tree, on a rooftop chimney where they bring good fortune, and on another chimney stack. I watched them at work for close to an hour as it was the end of a long village walk. While they are safe from predators up there, the storklets and storklings are vulnerable to the rain and cold weather so nest building has an urgency about it.

We trained in on the poppy-lined tracks to another beautiful station and set off to our new home in the hilly town of Santarem, close to the famous town of Fatima. After lunch we fast walked up higher and higher to the old part, past the familiar tiled market place and over the narrow cobbled streets. Another 30 minute fast walk back down (a sort of alternate walk that made me feel better about the walking part of my day).