2025 - Day 3 - VILA FRANCA DE XIRA - AZAMBUJA

Scores On the doors 13.41 miles 21.58 Km 134m up 96m down

Vila Franca de Xira was celebrating a three day bull fighting festival, and as a result we kept on being woken up by very noisy Portuguese guests until 1 in the morning.  But eventually got to sleep waking up at the usual time.  Getting our bags down for eight and then into breakfast. During breakfast we heard the rain coming down and this was the case all day, showers and occasional sunshine, where everything dried out.  We waited till the shower had stopped before venturing out, we started by heading across the road to visit the market, as we love to look round traditional markets, split into their various zones, this one starting with the fresh fish stalls (some fish so fresh, the eels were still slithering about!!). We then moved on to the meat, fruit and Veg and then cake stalls, where I was accosted by a lady canvassing for the communist party for the forthcoming elections, and had to say I was English and so couldn’t vote in their elections!  In the town were lots of posters extolling bull fighting, both lauding the bull fighters but also lauding particularly bulls, who obviously have a following just like race horses in the UK and Ireland. 

We then started on the way proper, crossing back over the railway at the station, and out through the municipal gardens before reaching a road. Before long, the heavens opened, so we dashed for the bridge and donned cagoules.  After walking on the tarmac for a while we turned onto a farm track, and basically followed the railway line all day, sometimes on farm tracks and other times on tarmac, with a couple of detours into villages and towns. The first was in outskirts of Carregado where we stopped for a peach iced tea, and then in Vila Nova da Rainha we found a sheltered dry bench outside the mayor’s office where we stopped to eat our rolls and fruit which we had squirrelled at breakfast time. 

Then it was back on farm tracks until the outskirts of Azambuja, where they were preparing for a bull running later this month with large fences made of 6x4 timber being erected to separate the Bulls and bull runners from the viewing public.  We eventually arrived at the tourist office and went for a coffee across the road where we phoned our accommodation at Casa do Alfaro.  We were in luck as Tatiana the owner was in town so was able to pick us up ten minutes later and bring us out to the house which is about 7 km from town.  We arrived by 4pm got ourselves showered and sorted and were down for pre dinner beers at 6pm. 

Waymarks seen today