Another misty morning greeted us as we opened the curtains on Tomar’s last performance. We had balcony seats so we also felt the touch of the cool air as we strained to see the castle we never saw. The others had already made a start so it was off to breakfast to join them and talk about the day ahead.

We had a meeting and agreed that distances are too far at present and rail stations don’t continue along the camino, so our emergency transport would not happen. Our friends offered to take us further north to a place where the town we were walking to was reachable – so we settled on Coimbra. 

Our GPS, and a masterful driver, got us going and we continued our camino in a different way. It felt a bit strange but also like it was meant to be because without our friends it may have been another story.

We followed the camino as best we could, until the yellow arrows turned our roads into tracks where we then took other roads to where the walking track re-met ours. While it was comforting to have a car, whenever we saw pilgrims slogging it out in the rain, there was a desire to join them, like that was our sworn duty and we were abandoning them.

Many villages we passed through had been truly abandoned by its citizens but unlike those pilgrims their neglect was real. There was no sense that they would survive with trees and bushes hurrying on their demise. Through their sad, narrow and windy streets there was a sense of saudade, a sadness of once was but will never be again.

Arriving in the steep old part of Coimbra we had mixed feelings as we sat high up above the imposing river below sharing a drink and a meal with our generous friends. There will be no sense of abandonment but rather a sense of saudade may ensue as we look back on the wonderful time we spent together, with ‘sadness that it’s over, but happiness that it happened’.