Caminho de Tejo (Fatima) 2024

I find myself with holiday days that need to be used up and Jocelyn is planning to go away with the girls on a sun-seeking trip to the Canary Islands without me! Having said I won't be walking this year, I find myself in an unfit, slightly overweight state that needs rectifying. So, it's time for a Camino, at the end of November, I'm sure the weather will be fine.  

The Caminho de Tejo to Fatima - (Note the Portuguese Camino spelling) from Lisbon in the South of Portugal to Fatima is 157km long and I plan to walk it in 5 days. The first 3 days are shared with the Camino de Santiago, the Portuguese route from Lisbon to Santiago. After that, the path splits into two with one path leading off to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima and the other continuing north towards Coimbra, Porto and Santiago.

I've wanted to do this trip for a while but not everybody shares my enthusiasm for visiting a different Marian shrine. So, this is an opportunity to walk it on my own and as many of you know, I do love a good shrine. As shrines go, this one is fairly modern. In 1917 three shepherd children experienced six apparitions of the Virgin Mary describing her as 'a lady more brilliant than the sun.' And so, the pilgrimages began... better pack my rosary beads for this one.

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