Is there a detailed guide to walking from Valenca to Fatima?

[Jmhilde]

It would be nice to not have to reverse-engineer a south-to-north walking guide! Cheers!

 

[lovelyshell]

There are blue arrows along the Portuguese Central to follow to Fatima but it didn’t seem it was well-marked.

 

[dougfitz]

There are two sites that might help you to understand that you won't really need to reverse engineer anything, but follow well established routes maintained by various Portuguese associations. They are:

• https://caminhosdefatima.com/en/
• https://caminhosdefatima.org/en/

I felt that the blue arrows and other waymarking were about as plentiful going towards Fatima as the yellow arrows were going to SDC, but I wasn't checking this consistently. Certainly on the Caminho do Tejo, which I walked in 2023, the waymarking for that route was at least as good as the Camino Portuguese Central route from Lisbon.

Where the Caminhos do Fatima coincide with the Camino Portuguese, Gronze also provides accommodation information that you might find helpful.

 

[edandjoan]

https://www.caminhosdefatima.org/images/caminhos/norte/caminho-do-norte-roteiro.pdf

 

[Michael55]

I walked Valenca to Fatima last summer—the links above were what I had in addition to reversing gronze and reversing Camino ninja app. I did not find any additional guides. I did the first section to Porto reverse Coastal rather than by the official guide. It was not particularly complicated to walk that section in reverse as the beautiful ocean was always to my right. The last section “Rota Carmelita” from Coimbra to Fatima was well marked with detailed map kiosks in places in addition to the blue arrows. Have a great pilgrimage!

 

[Jmhilde]

Muito obrigada, everyone! Good to know there are an abundance of blue arrows pointing our direction. I was hoping for a step-by-step like the Brierley guides but the Roteiro brochure is a pretty good second.

 

[Former member 22438]

Do as Portuguese do in the direction towards Fátima : put your trainers on, carry a light day backpack and follow the shortest route , by walking on hardshoulders of national roads, the so called N routes. You only need a road map like I phone Maps or Google Maps.
take a yellow security jacket with you to be seen .
Bom caminho

Associação de Amigos dos Caminhos de Fátima

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here all information in google

amigos de caminho de fatima ruta - Google Zoeken

 

[dougfitz]

Do as Portuguese do in the direction towards Fátima : put your trainers on, carry a light day backpack and follow the shortest route , by walking on hardshoulders of national roads, the so called N routes. You only need a road map like I phone Maps or Google Maps.
take a yellow security jacket with you to be seen .
Bom caminho

I would be very cautious about this. It is does indeed seem to be the practice at certain times of the year for large groups of pilgrims to Fatima to use the road network, but it also appears to be accompanied by much more substantial arrangements for the logistical support of the pilgrims, and for road safety than any individual walker could muster. Whole lanes of roads are set aside for walking pilgrims, with safety barriers of various natures set up to separate vehicle traffic from pedestrians, traffic marshalls at key points, and I suspect many things that I didn't see. Walking as an individual in this way, even wearing high-visibility clothing, doesn't seem to be a sensible suggestion to me.

 

[jungleboy]

Do as Portuguese do in the direction towards Fátima : put your trainers on, carry a light day backpack and follow the shortest route , by walking on hardshoulders of national roads, the so called N routes. You only need a road map like I phone Maps or Google Maps.
take a yellow security jacket with you to be seen .
Bom caminho

I'm not sure if this is a serious recommendation but assuming it is, I strongly disagree and would not recommend that at all, along the lines of what @dougfitz said. This is indeed how Portuguese pilgrims walk to Fátima (including the fluorescent vests, because it's dangerous) -- in groups, with support vehicles, and as penitence. It is steeped in the religious tradition of Portugal but not at all in the modern concept of a camino typical of those that go to Santiago (i.e. where enjoying nature, having some peace and quiet, walking on nice trails etc is a large part of the experience).

Instead, you can reverse walk the Camino de Santiago to Tomar and then take the so-called Caminho Nascente to Fátima, which is much more pleasant than walking on the shoulder of busy roads.

 

[Former member 22438]

I would be very cautious about this. It is does indeed seem to be the practice at certain times of the year for large groups of pilgrims to Fatima to use the road network, but it also appears to be accompanied by much more substantial arrangements for the logistical support of the pilgrims, and for road safety than any individual walker could muster. Whole lanes of roads are set aside for walking pilgrims, with safety barriers of various natures set up to separate vehicle traffic from pedestrians, traffic marshalls at key points, and I suspect many things that I didn't see. Walking as an individual in this way, even wearing high-visibility clothing, doesn't seem to be a sensible suggestion to me.

Indeed I agree with you it is dangerous .But once we were lost around Coimbra and asked around how to get on . We asked some locals and most advised us to follow the motorway .As all Portuguese do as they said.
when we walked nearby Tomar , a group was hit by a truck with several casualties.
So the common advise is follow the blue waymarkers ,
as the Portuguese say as setas azuís

 

[dick bird]

follow the shortest route , by walking on hardshoulders of national roads, the so called N routes.

Even Portuguese people will freely admit they are not the best drivers in Europe.

 

[dougfitz]

Indeed I agree with you it is dangerous .But once we were lost around Coimbra and asked around how to get on . We asked some locals and most advised us to follow the motorway .As all Portuguese do as they said.
when we walked nearby Tomar , a group was hit by a truck with several casualties.
So the common advise is follow the blue waymarkers ,
as the Portuguese say as setas azuís

When I walked the CP last year, I met enough pilgrims walking on the Northern Route, ie the CP in reverse, to think that not all Portuguese use the highways. Clearly this happened past Ansiao, where the Fatima route diverges from the CP route.

 

[Former member 22438]

Even Portuguese people will freely admit they are not the best drivers in Europe.

Once behind the steering wheel of their cars they think they can drive like Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen.

 

[Friend from Barquinha]

Once behind the steering wheel of their cars they think they can drive like Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen.

This happens even when they're hopping down the street 1/2 km to the grocery store! Eternal vigilance required.

 

[Jmhilde]

Ola, all! We completed our (somewhat abbreviated) walk on the Northern Route to Fatima and it was lovely! Plenty of blue arrows to follow (and lots of yellow ones pointing the "wrong way" when there were no blues.) Beautiful countryside, not too hot, wonderful historic towns (Valenca, Barcelos, Ponte de Lima), plenty of cafes and rest stops. A little more hill-climbing than this group of 60-somethings was quite prepared for but we got creative and used ground transport a few times (i.e. to go around La Bruja mountain!)

All in all, a wonderful mini-Caminho. We worked with Portugal Green Walks (obrigada, Paola!) whom we highly recommend for help with luggage transfers and accommodations along the route.

Thanks to everyone here on the forum for sharing helpful info and tips!

 

[JabbaPapa]

Not yet, but the various Portuguese Ways are in the midst of being properly waymarked by the Ministry of Tourism.

 

[James Storrie]

Ola, all! We completed our (somewhat abbreviated) walk on the Northern Route to Fatima and it was lovely! Plenty of blue arrows to follow (and lots of yellow ones pointing the "wrong way" when there were no blues.) Beautiful countryside, not too hot, wonderful historic towns (Valenca, Barcelos, Ponte de Lima), plenty of cafes and rest stops. A little more hill-climbing than this group of 60-somethings was quite prepared for but we got creative and used ground transport a few times (i.e. to go around La Bruja mountain!)

All in all, a wonderful mini-Caminho. We worked with Portugal Green Walks (obrigada, Paola!) whom we highly recommend for help with luggage transfers and accommodations along the route.

Thanks to everyone here on the forum for sharing helpful info and tips!

Hi from New Zealand I'm keen to walk valenca to fatima (the reverse) I'm told it's not recommended, but I've done the coastal portugal route in reverse, had no issues. How did you find it and have you any albergues or hostel recommended thx james

 

[unadara]

It's a few years since I walked to Fatima and the one thing I can remember is at one stage I followed a group of ladies walking in the distance instead of figuring out my own path. I ended up following a Pilgrimage group as stated above, they stayed on the hard shoulder and had support in vehicles, I could not get back to my intended path so ended up 40kms out of my way and had to get a Train back to the last major town, I loved the path when I rejoined it and was assisted by groups at roadside stops with refreshments and even at one stage a massage! Find the information from the links above and walk to Fatima.

 

[dougfitz]

Hi from New Zealand I'm keen to walk valenca to fatima (the reverse) I'm told it's not recommended, but I've done the coastal portugal route in reverse, had no issues. How did you find it and have you any albergues or hostel recommended thx james

I'm not sure where you got the advice that the route you want to walk is not recommended, but I would challenge that. Unlike walking the reverse direction on other caminos that I have walked, where there is no way making in the reverse direction, the Northern route to Fatima is generally a mirror image of the CP to Ansiao, a little south of Coimbra. I know that there are some small differences in the routes in towns like Coimbra, but these are minor, and the routes between the towns are practically identical from what I could tell walking it.
In terms of accommodations, Gronze is a useful resource while the CP and Northern route coincide. When I left the CP in Santarem to walk to Fatima, there was a list of accommodation on the Caminho Tejo website. I expect there would be similar information about the Northern route on one or other of the websites that I listed at the beginning of this thread.