Today’s word is “Tomato” or “Tomate” in Portuguese.
Nearly all of my walk today was through farm country, and for hour after hour, all I saw was tomato fields. I even saw an automated tomato picking machine in action, as well as about 20 dump trucks full of tomatoes. I looked it up, and Portugal is the world’s largest exporter of tomato paste.
Today’s Hike
It was about 20 miles from my starting hotel to my ending hotel, so my plan was to take a train to shorten the stage. I ended up riding to the town of Azambuja, which cut the hike in half.
It was a good decision. It turns out the first half of the hike was just a boring dirt road next to the train track. I didn’t miss anything, and since one of my toes was a little sore from yesterday, taking it easy made sense.
Valada
The town of Valada is very small and poor. It reminds me of many of the small dusty towns on the Meseta in Spain. What’s unusual about it is that it’s on a large river with a small beach and a nice park. The river is wide enough that I saw sailboats, and even a jet ski towing tubers. Many of the locals were out at the waterfront trying to stay cool (during their siesta).
I arrived 4 hours before my room was scheduled to be ready, so I got lunch then went to the park to rest in the shade. Even so, it was very hot, and I was sweat-covered and dirty from all the dirt paths that I was on today.
I got lucky because my room was ready 90 minutes early, and it’s gorgeous with a wonderful shower and excellent AC. It felt so good to get clean and rest after the hot walk. It’s crazy to find a such trendy hotel in this dreary little town.
Today I covered just under 10 miles and by then end of the day will have taken about 26,000 steps. The temperature was in the 70s when I started walking but quickly climbed to a high of about 90. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day, and not much shade on the road, so it was a short but tough walk.
Bill on the Camino 
I LOVED all the Portuguese bakeries. My wife’s and I favorite sweet treat to eat after the custard tars was ‘Pao de Deus’ (God’s Bread or the Bread of God).
Looks like it was VERY hot, and great choice to take a ride to shorten the hike.
Most towns I visited in Portugal had a tile (azulejo from Arabic al-zulayj, “little stone”) mural depicting the city or its history, like the pic you took of Azambuja.
Bom Caminho!
I can’t resist a bakery. Happy to be out of the industrial area and into the countryside. All good here in Portugal.
+1 to bakeries!
I would have liked to see the automated tomato harvesting machines. Never imaginded tomato fariming to be automated. But why not? Everything else is. I am impressed how free of litter it seems to be there. Are you able to elaborate?
Turns out these tomatoes are used mainly for paste and ketchup so a little bruising isn’t a big deal. So suspect that’s why they can use machines. That said the machines seem to be gentle with the tomatoes. As for litter… depends on the location just like the US.