Portugal 2026: the Fisherman's Trail with the boys

This time it's not me writing

Every article on Kocourkov has been written by me, Kořus. Not this one. At the end of October my wife Hana Banana set off with our son Fery and his cousin Vojta on the Fisherman's Trail, a walking route along the cliffs of south-west Portugal, while I stayed home and booked their accommodation. They slept alternately out under the stars in the dunes and in cheap apartments along the way.

Every day Hanka sent a voice message home. The diary below comes from those five recordings, told in her own words. I only added the photos, the map and a few lines about the places.

The Fisherman's Trail (Trilho dos Pescadores in Portuguese) is the coastal branch of the Rota Vicentina, a network of walking routes in south-west Portugal. It is 226.5 km long and has 13 daily stages from São Torpes beach near Sines all the way to Lagos in the Algarve. You can walk it in either direction and the recommended season is from September to June. The trail follows the paths locals used to take down to the beaches and to their fishing spots on the cliffs, so it runs almost permanently above the sea and 60 to 70 % of the route is sand. Most of it lies in the Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina nature park, protected since 1988 and a nature park since 1995. The routes are waymarked and maintained by the Rota Vicentina association, founded in 2013. Hanka and the boys walked the middle section from south to north, from Aljezur to Vila Nova de Milfontes.

Saturday 24 October 2026, Prague – Munich – Lisbon

• We left Prague later than planned, but we had a big buffer, so we made it to Munich easily. We went in Honza's Formula 1 and I had to admit its acceleration was impressive, but otherwise we drove nicely and sang Kozel along the way.
• The car stayed in a car park in a village near Munich, we took the bus to the airport and were there two hours early. We checked in and did a bit of shopping in the mini-mart.
• The plane was half an hour late. Vojta was nervous that we wouldn't make it on board and after twenty minutes of waiting he was dragging me to the desk saying this was our last chance. The flight attendants kept calming us down with „one second, one second“ and then it turned out that the queue standing there really was waiting for our flight 🙂
• While boarding the boys waved at the pilot and he invited them into the cockpit, so they were over the moon. During one nasty bit of turbulence the boys loved it, I didn't.
• In Lisbon the board said belt number 4 for Munich. A thousand suitcases came out, our backpacks didn't. After an hour in the queue at lost and found a nice girl told us two planes had just arrived from Munich and our belt was number six. Luckily the backpacks were still lying there.
• Bolt: for twenty minutes the app kept telling us the driver wouldn't take it and another one was being found. Only the „I'm in a rush“ button for two euros extra summoned Zubair in a silver Citroën. We got in, backpacks in the back, we're starting off and at that moment some strangers came running up saying it was their car. Same Citroën, same driver according to the photo, just not ours. We got out and the real Zubair arrived a moment later.
• Hotel in the historic centre: anyone who doesn't check in by six has to go to a different hotel. The first one was wrong, at the second one only the fourth door opened. On the square next door, at around half past midnight, hundreds of students were demonstrating against expensive housing. The boys totally came back to life in the little hotel, they ate again and showered and went to bed around two.

Lisbon and Rossio square
Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, lying where the river Tagus flows into the Atlantic. The earthquake of 1 November 1755, followed by a tsunami wave and fires, destroyed a large part of the city including the whole lower centre, the Baixa. The Baixa was then rebuilt according to the plan of the Marquis of Pombal as a right-angled grid of wider streets. Rossio, officially Praça de D. Pedro IV, is one of its main squares. The paving of black and white stones in waves is called Mar Largo, “the wide sea”. Our hotel was on Rua de Barros Queirós right next to it.

Sunday 25 October 2026, Lisbon – Aljezur – Praia da Amoreira

• We had to get up early in the morning because we had tickets booked on the Flixbus to Aljezur. On top of that I still wanted to buy a gas canister for the stove at Decathlon. I don't normally carry a stove, but this time I gave in.
• One bus left before we found it, the next one was in 40 minutes. For a while it looked like we wouldn't catch our connection and I told myself not to get worked up about it, we're on holiday. Then the bus came 10 minutes early, we jogged the kilometre to Decathlon, they had the canister and a Bolt took us the last 2 km for €3.50. We were at Oriente station 25 minutes early. Without a phone and Google Maps you'd be absolutely stuffed these days.
• In Aljezur we did our shopping in a little store. A really lovely lady took a liking to Fery and tried to teach him some sentence in Portuguese. Fery laughed that it sounds like Spanish, just with a lisp. We set off around three, heading north according to the original plan, which at first means heading west to the sea. It's about 5 km to the sea through the interior, past eucalyptus trees that smelled wonderful. Dry everywhere, partly cloudy, around 20 degrees and windy.
• We didn't manage to get any accommodation, so it was a night under the stars. The beach was huge, over a kilometre of sand, behind it dunes and cliffs like in Palos Verdes in California, surfers in the waves. The ocean is just as wild as the Pacific, we're at the same latitude and it smells similar here. There was just one little pub and a car park by the beach, so at dusk I had a small beer and the boys had a Seven Up and we waited for it to get dark. Then we crawled in behind a dune so our headlamps wouldn't be visible.
• Dinner: pasta with red sauce and cheese. We didn't bring salt, so we cooked it in sea water and it was salted far too much.
• We didn't put up the tarp, no rain was forecast, we just covered ourselves with the sheet. The moon shone so brightly it cast shadows and during the night it crossed the whole sky in exemplary fashion. Cold dew fell, in the morning everything was wet. Fery complained he'd been cold, even though he had a down vest, a windbreaker and thermal underwear in his backpack. Vojta has a warmer sleeping bag, he wasn't cold.
• At night the ocean roared scarily and every ten minutes or so some extra wave came in. Vojta kept scaring us with a tsunami. I looked up for him that the last big tsunami hit Portugal in 1755, and Vojta immediately concluded that since there hadn't been one for so long, one was definitely coming now 😄

Aljezur
A small town in the western Algarve on the Ribeira de Aljezur river, with the ruins of a Moorish castle above it.

Praia da Amoreira
A beach at the spot where the Ribeira de Aljezur flows into the Atlantic, about 5 km north-west of Aljezur. Behind the beach there are dunes, above it cliffs and one restaurant with a car park.

Monday 26 October 2026, Praia da Amoreira – Rogil – Odeceixe

• In the morning, when we'd already had breakfast, a big dog turned up, something between a mongrel and a German shepherd, a bit striped like a tiger. It circled around us, lay down and watched us. I lured it away with sardines, it ate them and came back. After twenty minutes a nice lady came asking if their dog wasn't here. It was a female and the lady was giving her time to see if she'd come back on her own. A weight fell off my mind.
• The boys didn't want to leave the sea, so I assured them we'd be by the sea for the whole rest of the week. They packed up like lightning, Vojta especially.
• About 17 km were waiting for us. A big part of the route goes through sand, which is good training for beach volleyball. Along the way the boys played Dračí doupě, asked each other riddles, told a story sentence by sentence and sang Kozel and „Lach, lach, yeah, yeah“. My intellectual level dropped to that of a twelve and a ten year old, but I'm glad to see how they're developing their vocabulary and imagination.
• The backpacks are heavy: mine is the heaviest, Vojta's lighter and Fery's the lightest, but for a boy who doesn't even weigh thirty kilos it's a serious weight. Nobody complained.
• Lunch in Rogil at the only pub, which turned out to be a vegetarian den with a little shop. Only a few dishes, but excellent.
• In the afternoon we started meeting one Czech after another, we counted 21 of them in one day in four or five groups.
• Vojta's shoe started falling apart. I've got duct tape with me, we'll tape it up if need be.
• In the morning I managed to get an apartment, so finally a shower, we're covered in dust. Around half past six it was getting dark and there was still a kilometre and a half to go, but we've got headlamps.

Odeceixe
A village on the river Seixe, which here forms the border between the Algarve and the Alentejo. The river flows into the ocean at Praia de Odeceixe.

Tuesday 27 October 2026, Odeceixe – a campsite on the Alentejo coast

• We slept in an apartment by the river mouth, €70 through Booking. It was supposed to be a small room and it turned out to be a huge living room with a kitchen, washing machine, dishwasher, microwave and toaster, a terrace and a bedroom with a double bed, on which Vojta demanded to sleep with me. The style was something like thirty years ago and it smelled a bit of mould from the sea damp. I immediately washed everything and it dried in the sun in the morning. I cooked soup and the boys watched Ice Age for about the tenth time.
• To get back onto the trail we'd have had to walk along the river all the way to the bridge in Odeceixe and then back along the other bank, about 100 metres from the place where we'd slept. Fery declared he didn't want to walk 17 km again, so a Bolt took us the 3 km to Odeceixe for peanuts.
• We taped up Vojta's shoe with red tape and it lasted the whole day. He didn't want to buy new shoes.
• Today Vojta fancied walking alone and went out in front. Fery and I listened to the audiobook of Robinson Crusoe. Fery carried the phone in his hand and I trailed behind him like a tail so I could hear anything over the roaring sea. It was like camping next to the D1 motorway.
• We walked along the cliffs most of the day. Beautiful, but already a bit samey. We only went down to the beach just before the campsite, the sun was setting and the boys absolutely had to get into the cold water.
• We reached the campsite in the dark again, after about 15 km. We're sleeping under eucalyptus trees, their little balls have fallen everywhere and it smells lovely. For the night I'm putting on every piece of clothing I've got, including both pairs of leggings and the down vest.

Wednesday 28 October 2026, campsite – Cavaleiro

• The campsite was completely empty, off season. Apart from us there was maybe just one couple in a tent and one caravan, in the evening about twenty people in the restaurant. For the first time I was really warm at night, because I'd put on absolutely everything I had.
• In the morning the valve on the stove wouldn't turn. I wrestled with it for twenty minutes, then I sent the boys to reception for pliers. The guy tried, but he was afraid he'd wreck it. So we said goodbye to cooking and I gave him the almost unused gas canister from our famous Decathlon shopping spree.
• We set off almost at noon, but who cares, we're on holiday. The route was again about 17 km.
• The boys, Vojta especially, kept begging to go to the beach. We usually only get to the beach in the evening, so I gave in: everyone gets one big wish during the trip. Fery first announced that the water was so cold you couldn't swim in it, but when he saw Vojta and the other kids jumping in the waves, he went in too.
• On yesterday's beach I looked for shells and didn't find a single one. Instead there were thousands of bits of plastic washed up by the sea. I wanted to collect it, but with that amount there was no point.
• We greet people with a mix of "olá, hello, hallo, dobrý den", because there are loads of Czechs here and they're giving the Germans a run for their money. One lady told us she'd been hesitating whether her kids could manage it, and now she sees it would work. Our boys are the only kids with backpacks we've met, so everyone smiles at them.
• In one village we ate at a kebab place and then I spent ages looking over a stall with brass jewellery that the guy made himself. The boys shouted that this was my big wish, so I had to admit it.
• We couldn't make it before dark, night falls terribly early. For the last 10 km or so Vojta led us and at the end he found a shortcut along a cycle path, so we walked on firm ground instead of deep sand. Pleasant temperature, nothing biting.
• In the evening at the apartment I had no oil, so I used the oil from a tin of tuna for cooking and felt like Robinson Crusoe. Over dinner we played Hurvínek's Old Czech Legends and the boys nearly died laughing.
• We got to Cavaleiro just before eight. An apartment for €70, a maisonette over two floors.

Cavaleiro
A village on the Alentejo coast between Zambujeira do Mar and Almograve.

Thursday 29 October 2026, Cavaleiro – Almograve

• Probably the warmest day of the whole trip, I walked just in a skirt and sandals. I did the laundry for the second time.
• In the morning I sent the boys to the little shop for snacks. Vojta didn't want to go, said he doesn't like shopping, so Fery went alone and came back with crisps and chocolate.
• We worked out the rest of the trip: on Saturday we want to spend the whole day in Lisbon and on Sunday we fly early in the morning. The Flixbus to Lisbon leaves from Vila Nova de Milfontes, so for the last two days we're only walking around 9–10 km and the boys can mess about on the beach more.
• We met several seniors, mostly grannies who were definitely over 70. Wrinkles down to the ground, but trotting along nicely with their little backpacks. One of them was Czech.
• We keep listening to Robinson Crusoe, Robinson already has Friday and a dog and Vojta is hooked on it too. Walking along the coast with the sea splashing, I feel exactly like Robinson.
• In Almograve Fery's big wish came true: all you can eat sushi, but ordered, not a buffet. We stuffed ourselves.
• By the time we finished eating it was dark. We walked along the beach and then the dunes with desert plants, the sea was roaring like crazy and the moon wasn't up yet. We found a spot behind a dune. The tarp was hard to pitch, pegs don't hold in sand, so we wound the cords around stones like Robinson.
• At three in the morning I was woken by banging on the tarp, I was convinced someone was walking around us. It was the wind and the loose tarp. I fixed it, two hours later it happened again, so in the end we took it down.
• It turned out to be the coldest night. The moon came up, there was that awful light again and it got chilly. I had everything on and I was still cold, Fery too. Vojta slept in an equally thin sleeping bag in just his boxers and was fine, a real tough guy 😄

Almograve
A seaside village in the Alentejo, one of the stops on the Fisherman's Trail. Sand dunes stretch out to the north of it.

Friday 30 October 2026, Almograve – Vila Nova de Milfontes – Lisbon

• In the morning I spent ages looking for accommodation in Lisbon. In one place the reviews mentioned cockroaches, a broken door and a creepy hallway, in another they wrote that there are all sorts of characters on the street and they wouldn't leave their wife there alone. In the end we'll be in a hotel with a discount through Booking, Honza booked it.
• Today it's a short one, we're heading north. In the morning the boys messed about on the dunes, sliding down them, jumping off them and pulling each other's legs, now they're building a sandcastle and running into the waves.
• They're being a bit cheeky, Fery especially: apparently I'm a "blue whale" and having a woman in the crew is awful. But we're a good bunch. The advantage is that there are two boys, they keep each other busy and I get a moment to myself, like right now. Three cheers for Robinson!

• In the afternoon we set off, with only about 9 or 10 km left to Vila Nova de Milfontes. There you can cross the river by ferry or walk round over the bridge, which is much longer. I couldn't find out whether the ferry runs, I was hoping it would work out.
• We stopped at a beach once more, then I was hurrying the boys along so we'd make it. Vojta suggested a shortcut off the main path. We went along little paths on the cliffs where Dad would have gone completely mad that we'd fall, but it was fine.
• Then we ended up in a little wood like a jungle. Trodden paths, we were pushing through bamboo or whatever it was and bushes. Suddenly the path ended and there was nothing but terrible thorns. Back, another path, and again. We got completely lost. According to the map we were maybe 150 metres from a road and a car park, and yet it was totally impenetrable.
• We were stuck there for at least half an hour, scratched till we bled. When we finally got out, it turned out we had to walk all the way round that crazy wood, and on top of that we realised we were going to miss the bus to Lisbon.
• We ran out to the first road and called a Bolt. He wrote that he was coming, but according to the map he was driving somewhere else. Quite a drama, but it turned out fine.
• The bus to Lisbon was easy. At the station I found a way to the hotel with two public transport connections, and Vojta immediately suggested another Bolt. He tends towards luxuries: one more little Bolt, one more little juice. Fery has it too, but Vojta more, so I keep putting the brakes on.
• There was a huge transport hub, an overground train, the metro, buses. I bought a 24-hour ticket so we could ride around the city the next day, and we got to the hotel without trouble. The moment we walked into the room, all the tiredness fell off the boys and they ran riot.
• The hotel was probably super modern in the eighties, now it's faded glory. But clean, safe and fine.

Saturday 31 October 2026, Lisbon

• For breakfast the boys had the unhealthiest things they could find, Nutella and Swiss roll. We know how it is.
• On ChatGPT's advice we first went for the yellow historic trams that run through the prettiest old neighbourhoods. An hour and a half in the queue, really awful, but it was worth it.
• The tram was sweet. The boys hung out of the open window, waved and now and then high-fived someone in the street. It was warm, 25 degrees, short sleeves again.
• We rode the whole line to the terminus, even though we should have got off in the middle. We didn't regret it, and on the way back we were the first ones on the tram.
• We got off at a viewpoint, had something to eat, walked through a square and down to the sea. From there you can see a bridge that looks almost like the Golden Gate. Trains run underneath, cars on top.
• On the hill behind the bridge a tower was glowing pink with something white on top. Vojta had to find out: it's a giant statue of Christ, almost a replica of the one in Rio de Janeiro. So they have a replica of the Golden Gate and a replica of Jesus, that's quite something.
• Getting back was more complicated, one or two buses didn't come. Public transport works well here otherwise, it's just probably not as reliable as ours.
• Portuguese airlines have a really complicated check-in, I spent about two hours on it before I managed to get the boarding passes.

25 de Abril Bridge
Suspension bridge over the Tagus estuary in Lisbon, opened in 1966. It is red like the Golden Gate in San Francisco, cars use the upper deck and since 1999 trains run on the lower one.

Cristo Rei
Statue of Christ the King on a hill in Almada across the river from Lisbon, consecrated in 1959. It was modelled on Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.

Sunday 1 November 2026, Lisbon – Munich – Prague

• Up at five. We took a Bolt to the airport, I didn't want to risk public transport any more.
• Check-in insanely complicated, queues everywhere. Good thing we came so early, it worked out just right.
• I recorded the last message in the queue for boarding. The humming in the background isn't the sea, it's a fridge at the airport.
• So if the plane doesn't crash, we drive home safely from Munich and the car hasn't been stolen, I declare this trip excellent and a great success. Hooray, bye!