santo antonio and fatima, portugal

We finally made it to the town of Torres Novas, where Vera picked us up and drove us to her town, Santo Antonio. Santo Antonio is a small town of about 800 people a couple of hours north of Lisbon. Vera was telling us that they didn't get electricity there until 1963! She lives with her grandparents, and even though it was late, they had waited up for us. It was a really nice place that Vera's grandpa built himself. We sat by the fire for a while (which heats the water for the house - including showers!) while her grandma made us some soup.

I think we had the best sleep yet that night! The room was completely dark and it was QUIET! No drunk roomates stumbling in in the middle of the night, no one flicking the light on and off, no one rustling through their bags.. it was nice! Just the rooster waking us up in the morning..hahahah. First we went with Vera to the nearby town of Fatima where she had a couple of errands to run. She also showed us around the town a bit. She gave us an introduction to Fatima and the whole story of the three shepherd children whom Mary appeared to six times, in 1917 I think it was? She took us to the chapel on the site of where Our Lady appeared and to the church there, where the children's tombs are located. There was an interesting atmosphere there, seeing all the people who have made pilgrimage to the site. Vera told us how people in the nearby towns would walk to Fatima once a year. From her town, it would take her grandma around 4 hours to walk to there. We didn't spend too long there, because we would be coming back that night and staying with Vera's friend Jenny, who lives right in Fatima and would show us around in more detail the next day.

We were going to go check out these caves nearby, but it was such a beautiful, hot day that we met up with Vera's friend Edgar and headed to the beach of Nazare. We were stunned at how beautiful it was. We were planning on taking a bus 3 hours south to the city of Lagos for a little beach vacation - our mishap with buses and being so rushed the day before made us realize that maybe we needed to slow down a bit and relax for a while. We were so impressed with Nazare though that we decided to look into staying there instead of Lagos. It was a LOT closer, and we would be able to take a bus there from Fatima. Vera was able to talk to some of the ladies that were renting apartment rooms, and since it was low season, we scored a three bedroom apartment practically right on the beach for only 25 euro a night! That's only 12.50 per person! It was an awesome find, and we couldn't wait to return in a couple of days. We went to this little restaurant for dinner, where the waiter actually went to his house to get the ingredients, lol. The picture of him below is him strolling along with the pot in his hands..hehe.

When we got back to Santo Antonio, we picked up our things and Vera took us to her friend Jenny's house in Fatima. Jenny (also from Vancouver!) was an awesome host, and took us up to this castle and to a little bar to try a liquer of the area called ginja. We were also going to go to another bar, but by then it was pretty late and we were super tired from our long day.

In the morning she toured us all around Fatima, taking us to other apparition sites and the houses of where the children lived. She had to meet her tour group in the afternoon, but our bus to Nazare wasn't until the evening so she gave us her spare key and we were able to hang out at her very spacious apartment for the rest of the afternoon. It was so nice to just relax and do nothing! We went next door and got some piri-piri chicken and had a yummy lunch. On our way out we left the key in the mailbox and headed on what turned out to be the VERY long walk to the bus station. An hour and a half later, we were back in Nazare!