John has actually been around Bom Jesus a number of times; back when he was building up endurance for a potential week-long hike in the north of England, he would walk himself up the hill to the Sanctuary every week or so. On those occassions, though, he’d just climb all the way to the top, pant and wheeze for a few minutes, and then make his way back down. This time we just took a car. We meant to start with the Sanctuary but got a little turned around with the road signs and so began our expedition at the other major religious site a couple of kilometers away, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sameiro. (Us cool locals just call it “Sameiro.”) Funnily enough, some of us actually like Sameiro better – the building itself is more robust and the layout is easier to navigate, plus the view overlooking the valley is at least as nice.

Backtracking a bit, we made it to Bom Jesus and had a look around. The key feature of course, and the thing that can catch your eye down in the city if you ever tilt your head back a little, is the baroque, zigzagging staircase. It was begun in 1721 and had its last addition completed in the 1780s; multiple archbishops got their mitts on it, each wanting to (one presumes) glorify God and (it can be observed) themselves as well. The fountains (the dark gray things running up the center of the picture below) embody the 5 senses – at each one, spigots emit water from the ears, or the nose, or the eyes etc… of a large face. Thematically on-point, they are a little odd to look at.

It was the wrong time of year to really dawdle; there’s a park behind the Sanctuary with a duck pond and even paddle boats for you to tool around in, but it was cold and overcast and just not a day for lollygagging in a field. Given that none of the three of us are particularly religious, or at least Catholic, we took far more interest in the scenery than the chapels and such, but the two locations make for a fascinating afternoon that lets you look at our town from a literal and metaphorical fresh perspective.

When we were married in late April of 2012, we were roughly in sync with my 40th birthday in early May. Our honeymoon took us through parts of Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern England, and if you’ll forgive me for jumping to the point of this insane preamble we saw Hadrian’s Wall on the fourth day. I couldn’t tell you why, out of all the things we’d ever seen together, the Wall is what stuck with me but it did. I saw that there were people hiking along it as we visited one of the fort ruins that dot the wall and the gears started turning. Cut to a few days later, when my wife made me a Scottish noble for a day on my actual birthday – ok, not actually enobled but we stayed at a country manor and went freaking hawking in the morning, it doesn’t get much more nobbly than that. Something about taking stock of life at 40 led me to ponder the future, and the next thing I knew words were coming out of my mouth. “When I turn 50 I’m going to walk Hadrian’s Wall.”

Lisa was quite surprised by this, but then so was I. I didn’t then (nor do I now for that matter) go on particularly long walks, never mind hikes. Sure, the occasional tour or strange occasion keeps me on my feet all day, but certainly nothing like regular. I think some voice in the back of my mind thought “if you’re going to do that at 50 you’ll have to be at least somewhat healthy.” Sure, subconscious me, nice try. For better or for worse, John at 50 turned out to be a lot like John at 40 but, hey! For all I know the plan worked and in an alternate universe I’m Jabba the Hutt. Anyway, the point is that I have in fact been talking about this goal consistently if sporadically for the last decade. It’s always been on the metaphorical calendar. LOOOoooong before we dreamed of actually living in Europe and we were just planning trips every 2-3 years, 2022 had always been blocked off as “return to Northern England for Wall hiking.”

I can hear some of you doing math under your breath right now. No, you’re not wrong, we’re a year late. For very good reason, though – it turns out that some of our dearest friends wanted to come along! This made for a more complex logistical job, however, and also at some point a couple of maniacs decided to move to Portugal and it seemed like a bridge too far to work in this milestone trip. But the walk is indeed happening, this May! Over two weeks, we’ll be spending two days walking the trail and taking one day off for rest and/or sightseeing. I’m old, just finishing is a success. :p

So why are you hearing about this now? Because I’m walking my #*&^@# !@(*#&@ off, that’s why! For all the crazy ideas I’ve been known to field, I actually do understand that going from couch potato to walking 83 hill-infested, sheep-bestrewn miles is probably untenable. And so, for the last couple of months I have been slowly raising the step count goal on my super cool, nobody else has one ’cause I’m the coolest pedometer. As of the first of February my daily step goal is 16,000. My hope is that by March I’ll be comfortable at 20,000, and then I’ll concentrate more on varying the terrain I’m walking. Currently the hardest thing I do is walk to Bom Jesus, which certainly isn’t easy but also isn’t that far. It’s kind of crazy how much my parameters for a “good long walk” have changed – it’s “only” 6000 or so steps from our home to Bom Jesus and, sure, they’re up a lot of the time but if I start playing games like that in my head pretty soon it’ll be “well, the cobblestones on that street were really off-kilter, those steps count double!” Nope, gotta count them straight. Which meeeeaaans after dragging my butt up there, I’m not even half done for the day. Ye gods and little fishes. We’ll keep you posted if there are developments, and you can be dang sure you’ll hear all about the hike when it finally comes to pass.