Chapter 14
Hola Peregrinos,
Buen Camino,
It is Sunday 5 April: Easter Sunday.
Still a day of real significance for so many.
Whatever you do today, wherever you spend it, whether it involves a church service or not, family gatherings, holidays or intentional time out alone, I truly hope it is a day of peace and joy and reassurance for you all.
I hope too, that you might just spare a thought, a prayer or a moment to think for the Jones family, who live in a tiny French hamlet called Le Suech, 1+ hours drive, north east of Toulouse.
In that hamlet, this tight knit family of around 20 people, including mum, dad, 6 sisters and brothers, grandchildren, spouses, friends and girlfriends will celebrate their own Easter, with a morning church service, a roasted lamb lunch served in a sunny courtyard and a madcap Easter egg scramble in that same yard and field behind their home.
It will be mad.
They are all bonkers.
Welsh and French!
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre; c’est de la folie’
‘It’s magnificent, but it’s not war; it’s madness’.
(In 1855,, upon hearing of the futile heroics of the Charge of the Light Brigade, General Pierre Bosquet famously made this pronouncement.)
On the surface, a neutral bystander might think that all is well in the Jones world.
On many fronts it is.
But today, just like on Christmas Day 2025, on every family member’s birthday since 4 July 2025, and on 18 April which would have been Hannah’s 25 birthday, they will try to celebrate, enjoy their time together and have fun despite the absence of one significant individual in that celebration.
Hannah.
Hannah was a daughter, sister, aunt and friend to so many.
She was loved.
And she is missed.
“Even when it hurts, I will praise you.”🎵
Late afternoon on Good Friday 2026, Camino Steve and I completed the 10th leg of our 600 mile/1000 km walk from Cape St Vincent at the bottom of Portugal, to Santiago de Compostella at the top of Spain.
We ‘Looped and Loped into Lisbon and for me, it really was love at first sight.
Wow! What a city!
What a river!
‘A river runs through it’. 📽️🎬
The city oozes class and charm.
Historic buildings, graceful period architecture, sun drenched plazas, cobbled twisting streets all in a temperate climate where the conventional attire was T shirts, shorts, sandals and shades. 🕶️
I love Lisbon.
But unfortunately on this trip, I only got to taste it.
It is now firmly on my agenda to revisit on a City break, with my lovely wife Nicky.
It was a shame that we only spent 14 hours in the city.
At 06.45 on Easter Saturday, we walked the 300 metres from our hostel to Lisbon Cathedral.
I sat on the steps and posed as Camino Steve snapped and then I repeated the procedure for him.
Then we were off.
Looking to follow those small scallop shell signs that take the pilgrim over 600 km further up the coast to Santiago.
Saturday morning there was already one big difference!
We 2 had become us 3!
We met Michael, a 35 year old IT specialist from California, USA, on the steps of Lisbon cathedral.
I like to think I B-ridged the gap between L– ondon and A-merica, in that photograph.🤣
We were now at the start point of the official Camino Portuguese and this is where you start to meet, walk and travel with other Peregrinos.
Before we had even started, we had met our first pilgrim since starting our walk, nearly 2 weeks ago.
Michael was starting his first Camino.
We proceeded to walk together for 9 of the next 11 hours.
He is such a nice guy.
It was a long walk.
A hot walk, with the mercury reaching 27 degrees by 2pm.
Camino Steve and I are so used to walking along well signed Camino trails, that we neglected to follow the map of the route.
One day I will learn.
Schoolboy error number 27!
Within 20 minutes of our start we were way off course, heading into the hills when we were supposed to be following the river!
This needed rectifying.
A better navigational focus meant that we returned to the trail about 40 minutes later.
But only after we had to unnecessarily climb a hill that had a leg burning elevation.
Poor Michael!
What an introduction.
Rock up for your first Camino, pose for some photos, only then to be led way off route, within 30 minutes, by some mad Englishmen who had made the cardinal error of not checking that they were on track.
He graciously forgave us.
Most especially when we witnessed an elevated sunrise over the port and when we proceeded to walk through a district bedecked in really clever and thoughtful street art.
We passed a ridiculously thin house.
I doubt I could even stretch out in it.
Within 5 minutes, we passed an even thinner house!
“That’s not a house: it’s a mausoleum: not even wide enough for a coffin!” (Nicky Moorman, 2pm, Easter Sunday. 😜
The morning light caused Lisbon to sparkle.
Even drab high rises took on an ethereal glow.
Moor eye popping graffiti graphics greeted us as we picked up the trail back by the river.
The last one could have been a Banksy.
Down by the river, the architecture and sculptures became more modern, but just as interesting.
One huge sculpture was way too ‘Cool for Cats’.🎵
We met Hugh and Barbara, also from the USA and walking their second Camino.
They walked with light packs and an gentle self confidence.
They knew what to expect and had packed accordingly.
We had a tasty breakfast with Michael after 2 hours of walking, with 6 miles already completed.
We continued as a trio, as the path took us waterside and started to move through the Lisbon suburbs.
The huge 8km road bridge came into focus and started to dominate our horizon, as we walked directly north.
More sculptures.
Such a cool city.
And street art that would have required 100 metres of scaffolding.
The trail opened up.
It was gloriously flat, not a degree off level.
Increasingly the surface turned to kilometer long boardwalks.
Camino Steve are I are boardwalk devoteees.
We can’t get enough of them.
The natural spring within the timbers provides extra comfort for tired or sore feet.
Yellow wild flowers returned as the norm and helped to enhance our route.
Mudflats glistened in the strong sunshine.
I bet that estuarine mud was hip height deep.
It was beautiful, in a slimy sort of way.
We stopped for a cold drink in Póvoa de Santa Iria.
2 euros for a coke or a beer.
Bliss!
The former for me.
Long distance walking, hot sunshine and beer don’t work for me as a midday combo.
Understandably Michael began to wilt.
He’d flown long haul into Lisbon the day before, was walking in heavy jeans, it was boiling hot and his pack weighed a tonne.
It was his first Camino day too.
He is now planning to pack up some gear and forward it by post to Santiago on Tuesday morning.
I’m still slightly overpacked at 6.5 kgs backpack weight.
So imagine how he must feel?
So I’ll be shedding some when Nicky joins me in Porto in 2 weeks time.
I’m looking forward to that! ❤️
Michael and I enjoyed a brilliant chat.
What is shared on the trail stays on the trail.
But we shared some similarities in our more recent experience.
Loss, its emotional impact, had been a shared experience.
We’ve both lost a lot within a very short period of time.
Loss really sucks.
Michael had worked for Google in Silicon Valley.
He was offered a year’s salary when he left.
His annual salary was seriously eye watering.
I always felt well paid as a Headteacher in England: very well paid.
Silicon Valley salaries dwarf those in the public sector.
But Michael had grown to realize that money doesn’t buy you everything and that often, the ‘best things in life are free’🎵.
‘Money can’t buy you love!’ 🎵
His reason for walking felt celebratory too.
His wife of 10 years, Erin, had encouraged him to walk the Camino.
I think it is going to have a majorly positive influence on him.
He felt it already was.
Michael reached his lodgings an hour and a half before we did.
We are in touch. Our paths will cross again I’m sure
Ours was a long walk again.
Not for any reason other than finding appropriately priced accommodation.
We currently pay between €20 and €30 euros per night.
Tomorrow, we will stay at a ‘Pilgrim Only Hostel’ costing €10 each.
You can only stay there if you have a Pilgrim Credential.
My sole on my right foot was painful again, so I changed to wearing Crocs for the last 7 km.
A huge petrol-chemical works loomed on the horizon.
It took an age to reach.
At times it felt unreachable.
At times like this, it really does hurt.
You could sit and mope.
You could cry.
You could cheat and catch a cab.
Or you can just push through.
‘Nothing lasts forever’🎵.
Pain is temporary.
‘Even when it hurts’. 🎵
As cliches filled my mind, that chemical works became my personal ‘Mordor’.
In Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, 2 hobbits travelling long isolated trails, must destroy the Dark Lord Sauron, by casting his ‘Ring of Power’ into the furnace of Mount Doom.
Hobbits we are not.
But Camino walking, for me at least, carries a certain resonance with that wonderful book.
I passed my test!
And I passed that tower.
My ‘Mordor’ was defeated …….. and it retreated.
Mordor or Murder?
Take your pick.
I’ll take both. 🙄
From both my view and its brooding influence.
I’ve learned during very personal tough times that you can still get through your ‘Mordor Moment’.
It will be a moment: it just feels like a life sentence.
I hope that in turn, is an encouragement to someone reading this blog today.
The remaining kilometers followed a beautiful cycle path along the estuary to our destination in Vila Franca de Xira.
We passed a trail mural of a Santiago bound peregrino.
I looked at Camino Steve and my own shadow.
We were both hot and bothered, silent within our own discomfort and dripping in sweat and desperate to stop.
I giggled out loud.
That illustration bore no resemblance to our reality.
Passers by gawped at the guffawing Englishman, once again out in the afternoon sun.
200 metres before we reached our hostel, another thing of beauty materialized.
At last I was able to take that cold beer.
We were done!
The hostel was lovely.
Camino Steve played a blinder last night.
Whilst I blogged, he sourced our picnic lunch for today, found and operated a laundry so we could machine wash all our clothes for the first time in 2 weeks and recce’d our eatery for dinner.
We will now be the freshest smelling pilgrims on the trail tomorrow.
We finished a magical day with a Portuguese curry, run by a lovely Asian lady.
It was hand cooked, so tasty and not too spicy.
‘Runs on the Trail’ are definitely a thing to be avoided! 🌶️🫣
Buen Camino.
Happy Easter.
Thanks for the read.
Martin x
Ps I’ve been asked a few times about how and when I blog.
I write as soon after a walk as I can. Camino Steve usually get my green light for first dibs in the bathroom and whilst he blags I blog.
My blogs take about an hour to 90 minutes to write.
My photos are displayed, as taken on my phone: completely unedited.
The phone dies have limitations in that its photographs can never be as clear as those taken on my precious Canon 5d Camera.
But my phone doesn’t weigh 2.5kg!
I want this to be a true record of this journey: not a touched up, instagrammable false reality.
I type as I think.
I like blogging.
You can sponsor me on this walk by clicking the link below.
Nearly £2.200 raised so far!
Amazing.
Thank you.
Martin Moorman is a 61 year old retired Headteacher who lives with his wife Nicky, daughter and her family in North Yorkshire, UK.
Happily married for 36 years, Martin and Nicky have 3 grown up children, all happily married too. In his spare time Martin loves walking, photography, football, renovating cooking and talking rubbish to anyone who will listen!
Good Friday’s Question:
Which other famous Roman Catholic shrine lies 1 day’s walk, west of the Camino Portuguese between Lisbon and Porto?
Answer: Fatima
Question
Who starred in the Hollywood movie ’The Way,’ which tells the story of a grieving dad, finding hope again, whilst walking the Camino de Santiago?
Martin Moorman 