Routes south of Lisbon to connect to the Camino?

[trecile]

I'm thinking of walking from Lisbon again, but I'm interested in a route that I could walk from the south for 5 days to a week into Lisbon. Any ideas?

I'm currently in my post Camino "where do I go next and when" phase.

 

[mochilaverde]

What about going to Fatima? https://caminhosdefatima.org/en/

 

[jungleboy]

I'm thinking of walking from Lisbon again, but I'm interested in a route that I could walk from the south for 5 days to a week into Lisbon. Any ideas?

This has been asked before but unfortunately just south of Lisbon is a bit of a black hole.

The two routes further south of Lisbon (one camino, one not) are the ‘Central’ from Faro (general thread here) and the Rota Vicentina. These now connect with each other, but not with Lisbon; the Central doesn’t meet the CP until Santarém. If you’re willing to skip Lisbon-Santarém, then the Central would be the best option for a longer walk that connects to the CP.

 

[naplesdon]

Nick recently wrote about his walk from Cabo de San Vincente. The connection by train and air from Faro to Lisbon and points north is pretty straight forward. Having done the journey by bus from Lisbon to Tavira, I can say that it is not the most enticing landscape in the world. From Lisbon north there is the new trail opened along the coast via Cascais.

 

[JabbaPapa]

The only reasonable way from South into Lisbon both geographically and historically would be by a maritime Caminho. There is a GR11 around the cape south of the city and eventually leading there across a modern bridge, but at that point you're on the Central and already North of Lisbon, so that doesn't really work either.

Even the Ways from Southern Spain, Cadíz, Gibraltar etc really just lead to Faro, so that the route from Faro does seem to gather all of the southerly Ways into one.

Sometimes, you really cannot defeat the constraints of geography.

 

[WayWalker]

I'm thinking of walking from Lisbon again, but I'm interested in a route that I could walk from the south for 5 days to a week into Lisbon. Any ideas?

I'm currently in my post Camino "where do I go next and when" phase.

You can walk from the Algarve. There was a fledgling camino society around this when we were there in 2016. There were route signs from Faro.

 

[markie6]

Faro To Lisbon Central Camino on plotaroute.com

Route map for 'Faro To Lisbon Central Camino' - a 455.7km walking route near Faro, PT. Plotted with the plotaroute.com route planner.

www.plotaroute.com

found this searching, unsure as to whether it's of use

there are several google links that also come back to the forum

 

[jungleboy]

You can walk from the Algarve. There was a fledgling camino society around this when we were there in 2016. There were route signs from Faro.

Faro To Lisbon Central Camino on plotaroute.com

Route map for 'Faro To Lisbon Central Camino' - a 455.7km walking route near Faro, PT. Plotted with the plotaroute.com route planner.

www.plotaroute.com

This is the Caminho Central that I mentioned upthread. It’s well signed and there’s a free guidebook in English and several other languages for download. The problem for @trecile (if indeed it is a problem) is that it doesn’t connect to the CP in Lisbon, but further north in Santarém. And I also think that any attempt to create a DIY link to Lisbon would just lead to a lot of suburban road walking, which I doubt trecile is interested in anyway.

But given that the Lisbon-Santarém section of the CP is not usually very highly rated, doing part of the Central (starting perhaps from Santiago do Cacém given its historical significance and the 5-7 extra days that she mentioned) and joining in Santarém could be a good option. SdC to Santarém would be about 10 stages.

 

[markie6]

This is the Caminho Central that I mentioned upthread. It’s well signed and there’s a free guidebook in English and several other languages for download. The problem for @trecile (if indeed it is a problem) is that it doesn’t connect to the CP in Lisbon, but further north in Santarém. And I also think that any attempt to create a DIY link to Lisbon would just lead to a lot of suburban road walking, which I doubt trecile is interested in anyway.

But given that the Lisbon-Santarém section of the CP is not usually very highly rated, doing part of the Central (starting perhaps from Santiago do Cacém given its historical significance and the 5-7 extra days that she mentioned) and joining in Santarém could be a good option. SdC to Santarém would be about 10 stages.

thanks Nick, your replies came up in searches I did here too. I've only researched other routes that are fairly well known. Problem with going further south are links to , for me. I guess that's why so many go from Lisbon if at all.

 

[peregrina2000]

There have been efforts to mark something, but I just cannot find the discussions that I KNOW we had on the forum. I think Nick is right that it becomes very hard to figure out how to walk when you get close to the 25th of April bridge, and before that is a very dense mass of suburbia.

One forum member said he was going to do it in this thread. But he never told us if he did it, at least not that I can see. Maybe this earlier thread. This member, @he.panpub, seems to have walked it. As did @Conques, see this thread.

There are posts from forum members who walked either to Sines or Porto Covo and took a bus from there.

Reading through these posts makes me think it would be a bit complicated!

 

[andycohn]

I was going to respond to this last night, but then I figured @jungleboy would soon be awake in Rome, and be right on it with precise information. And he was! We encountered the Camniho Centrale at Santiago do Cacem, where we started the Rota Vicentina / Fisherman's Trail. (The Centrale was heading north, while we were going south). The countryside in that area is very pleasant -- rolling, green, mixture of shade and open, lots of cork trees, civilized but not a lot of civilization. Getting to Santiago do Cacem is easy. Frequent buses from Lisbon. As Nick says, the Centrale links up with the route from Lisbon in Santarem, and it would be hard to get into Lisbon itself. Naturally, the route shows up on mapy.cz. Here's the track between Santiago do Cacem and Santarem:

Route from Santiago do Cacém to Santarém
Route 229.2 km • 62:35 hrs
https://mapy.cz/s/hamomunozu

 

[jungleboy]

There are posts from forum members who walked either to Sines or Porto Covo and took a bus from there.

A bus would be a game-changer in terms of options but I can only assume @trecile would like a continuous walk (as I do).

 

[trecile]

A bus would be a game-changer in terms of options but I can only assume @trecile would like a continuous walk (as I do).

Yes, I would like a continuous walk, but it's not crucial.
I'm just sitting here in my post Camino doldrums trying to think of what I will do for next year's Camino. It may not be in Portugal at all, but recent posts about the Fisherman's Trail made me interested in that route.
I was actually interested in seeing what the new route out of Lisbon is like, so joining at Santarém doesn't appeal to me that much (at least right now - my thinking on this can change!).

 

[jungleboy]

Yes, I would like a continuous walk, but it's not crucial.

If that’s the case you can pretty easily choose your number of days on the Rota Vicentina / FT and then bus back to Lisbon as Laurie said. My favorite stretch of the FT was the closest part to Lisbon anyway (Porto Covo — Aljezur would be 5 days, amazing scenery, both endpoints have bus connections, Aljezur is the most historic village on the FT).

 

[Camino Chrissy]

We flew into Lisbon for several days of sightseeing and visiting the area around Sintra first. Then we took a bus south to Porto Covo, where we started the Rota Vicentina Fisherman's Trail the next day, walking south all the way to Sagres. We then took a long bus ride to Porto, where we walked the Camino Portuguese. I considered it to be two separate continuous walks with completely different terrain and "feel".