Camino Portugués
32.3 km, 81 m up and 166 m down, through 3 places, 1 of which has somewhere to sleep. Where you stop is up to you.
Every place on the path in order, with the distance from Santarém. Most are too small to sleep in — a fountain, a chapel, a bar that may or may not be open — but they are what the day is actually made of.
The exit to town can be difficult to find via arrows and it is best to make your way to the Porta do Sol gardens that are part of the old Moorish castle.As you approach the gardens, there is a small flight of steps on your left-hand side. Turn down those to a small square and the Puerta de Santiago is on your left. Pass through it and pick up a dirt trail that takes you around the old city walls and down to the village of Ribeira de Santarém.
After crossing the tracks in Ribeira de Santarém, the camino takes a few turns before arriving at the Ponte do Alcorce.Cross the bridge, and a short distance on keep right to follow the road. Exactly 1km later, turn left off of the road, and then right again 200m later. The camino takes a few turns but is well marked all the way to Vale de Figueira.
Keep on the main road until turning right onto Rua do Sobaral (two streets past Church).At the first three-way intersection (Y-shaped), keep left. At the next, keep right (with the forest on your right).The markings from here to Azinhaga are confused and quite possibly misleading; mostly to do with uncertainty at a municipal level as to exactly where the camino should be, and also because frequent flooding in the area make the original way difficult. The arrows will always get you to Golegã, but there is a possibility that they take you through Pombalhino first.
The camino follows the main road all the way to the end of town where there is a roundabout with a bullfighter statue in the center. Keep straight here, passing through Broa.Turn right at the next T-intersection and follow the road all the way to Golegã.
There are confusing arrows leading you the wrong way out of town by way of Rua Dom João IV. Ignore these and instead find your way to the front of the church. Walk around it via the square with the bullfighter (your left). Turn left on that road, and then right again. Follow the road all the way to, and through, an intersection with the N243.
When entering Golegã, arrows indicate a right turn on the first street. DO NOT take that road. Instead, take the next. You will arrive in the same place (the main square and church), but you will get to see the impossibly beautiful building that is the Cphotography museum and studio of Carlos Revas.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 173 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 31.4 km.
Esta entidad ha sido beneficiaria de una ayuda del Programa de incentivos a la movilidad eficiente y sostenible (MOVES III), gestionado por la Xunta de Galicia a través del Instituto Enerxético de Galicia (INEGA) en el marco del Real Decreto 266/2021, y cofinanciada por la Unión Europea — NextGenerationEU, dentro del Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia.