Scores on the doors 17.11 + about 1 mile when gps turned off
After our returning to our hotel last night we had packed as much as we could, so when the alarm went off, packing was relatively easy. We had a breakfast slot booked for 8 so took the bags down then. After eating it was back to the room to sort out the last bits and we were ready to stride out, Lesley resplendent in her new trainers.
We left the hotel just after nine, 
and just round the corner we were beeped by a car horn it was Rui our taxi driver going to the hotel to pick up our bags. We then retraced my steps of yesterday down to the river via the Botanical Gardens, but not taking the steep staircase.
Back on the Camino we worked our way through the city now thronged with tourists, following quite hard to see bronze markers in the pavement 
and the occasional faded yellow arrows, with more consultation with our guidebooks than usual. Being a Sunday many of the churches were open and full of worshipers, but there were also many cyclists and runners about. After leaving the centre, we walked along a couple of broad boulevard, before going under one of the many motorways 
and joining a cycle path beside a canal, to take us past one of the stations, before taking a country road and saying a final goodbye to Coimbra.
The country road was long and straight, with a good path for pedestrians separated by bollards, although many had been destroyed by vehicles in the past. At one point in the fields we saw a shepherd and his sheep. 
Eventually we came to our first villages the first was just through some back streets, before going up a hill to the parish church of St James in Trouxemil 
where there was a cafe, however, it was shut, we suspected because there was a Mass going on in the Church. We plodded on and on leaving the village (which was quite long) encountered a massive mural all about the pilgrimage to Santiago.
In the next villages the cafe was also shut, but in Sargento Mor we managed to at last get a coffee. As we left the village before a trudge up the side of a major road we encountered some Fatima pilgrims with a support vehicle, whose feet were in a far worse mess than ours, talk about the walking wounded!
After our trudge up the busy road (brightened by spotting an Eriba Puck of the same vintage as our old Eriba Familiar at a caravan dealers) we eventually got onto forest paths for a few KM, before getting back onto the joys ☹️ of tarmac once again. We stoped in the village of Lendiosa for refreshments and to hatch a plan. I hade done some research before the trip and noticed our hotel was 5KM from Mealhada, so we had contacted Santiago Way and asked about it, and they had basically said take a 1.8 km detour from Lendiosa to get to it, but if we had followed their advise it would add 5 miles to our next day which was already about 17 miles long. In one of our guides (Brierly) he showed a route from Lendiosa which is no longer the official route, but put the hotel only 600m off the path, but it still meant an extra 5miles tomorrow. Mealhada is also famous for its “Leitão da Bairrada” (apologies to Vegetarian and Vegan friends) which I wanted to taste. If we just went to the hotel we would miss this treat. As it was only just after 3 we decided to head for the hotel, book in have an hours rest and then walk into town, get some food and get an Uber/Taxi back and tomorrow get an Uber/taxi back to town. So this is what we did. The hotel owner when he finally understood our plan and that we didn’t want Just Eats delivered burgers or pizza, gave us some fruit for the journey, we retraced our steps and took the route into town along a river and through woods before emerging near and passing a roundabout with its tribute to Bacchus, 
after a stop for foot treatments at a hyper market we wandered into town, but as it was Sunday night we were beginning to despair of getting a drink little own Leitão da Bairrad, however, we eventually spotted some bar style umbrellas and found a bar, after a chat with one of the customers, he recommended Pic-Nic as the best place for Leitão da Bairrada which would be open, so after finishing our beers we headed there, it was a lovely clean restaurant with extremely efficient staff who explained the pricing structure, as at first the prices seemed quite scary ordered and settled down to our plates of Leitão da Bairrada, with Deep fried potato chips and salad, (turn away now veggie friends) and here it is Leitão da Bairrada - 
Roast Baby suckling Pig and it tasted wonderful, washed down with a nice bottle of Rosé. As it said on the wine bottle’s cooling jacket. 
Sated we paid our bill hailed an Uber (for about 5 euros with a 2 euro tip) and returned to the hotel for a beer as I completed last nights blog.
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