Dear all,
I wanted to post some information about the coastal path based on some wonderful days of walking near Lisbon. It's absolutely brilliant.
A couple of years ago my wife and I walked from Lisbon up to Santiago, and then on St Jean. While some of the best days of walking were on the Camino Portuguese (north of Porto - in the Ponte de Lima area), also some of the worst days walking we have experienced were the three days heading out of Lisbon. On the classic route (by Villa Franca Xira and on to Santarem), we experienced,
- walking by the side of busy N-roads next to the trucks (rarely any pavements)
- a lot of time by chemicals factories, distributions centres, a power station, etc
- being followed by a dog under a motorway bridge
- long distances (30km plus) when you are just starting to get in shape
Frankly it's just an unpleasant slog that you have to get through to get to the better times.
We have come back to Lisbon and are living here for a couple of months, and have been out and about on some day hikes. And we discovered the most amazing thing. In Cascais, and Sintra, out to the west of Lisbon, we came across yellow arrows. Upon asking in the Cascais tourist office they gave us this map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1X1RwlXnlfPhTScpVdT6b4poRVrQ&ll=39.45352475734819,-8.659402949218702&z=10
which if you open on your phone in the google maps app shows you exactly where you need to go turn by turn.
Day 1 - Lisbon to Cascais. Walk from the Se cathedral to Alcantara-Mar station, then follow the path next to the sea to Belem and on out to Cascais. Some of the sea views are stunning, there is always pavement, the area is safe and nice. (note the map above only starts in Estoril, but all the way until then there is a clear path, marked with red/white blazes). And once you get to Cascais, the signage with the yellow and blue arrows begins (yellow - Camino, blue - Fatima)
Day 2 - Cascais to Sintra. We walked this yesterday. Unbelievable scenery, actually probably the best we saw anywhere on the Camino Portugeuse or Frances. Leaving Cascais there is the Atlantic Ocean, then you are walking through eucalyptus forest, then through a country estate (Quinta das Sequoias) full of boulders and forest, and then into Sintra with the historic castles. The whole day is either on quiet roads or tracks through forest, and we barely met a soul
We haven't been north of Sintra, but from the map, it appears the route goes all the way to Fatima, where you can nip across and get back onto the standard Camino route by Tomar. We can only personally vouch for the first two days, but based on what we saw,
- amazing scenery
- safe (never on the road with dangerous traffic)
- Cascais and Sintra are both lovely places to stay (I still remember the
Brierley book saying be careful the first day leaving Lisbon on the classic route at the only place to stay is a brothel!)
- manageable distances
- very clear signage (yellow and blue arrows very frequently)
As you can tell from this post this has been an amazing experience for us, and it changes the first days out of Lisbon from being some of the very worst, to some of the very best. Literally 10x more enjoyable.
Unfortunately we will not have the chance to get further north than Sintra, but if someone tries it, please do post a report on whether it continues to be so good all the way up to Fatima.
Best wishes
Tom
) and heading up through Praia das Macas. I've walked various times on these paths, but only as day trips from Lisbon. But I don't think there's any continuous path that goes from Cascais north to where the coastal path separates from the inland Caminho Portugues. 
