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| Basilica in Fatima |
The Pilgrimage of Fatima is one of the most important ones in the Roman Catholic world, and millions upon millions of people flock to this sacred place every year. It is founded on a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three peasant children back in 1917. My parents were keen to visit as they do whenever they come to Portuga so Martin and I accompanied them for the Fatima experience. The beautiful neoclassical Basillica was built in 1953 and contains the tombs of the three children; the last one, Lucia, died in 2005.
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| With my Mum and Dad in Fatima |
At the other side of the huge sloping Piazza (which is twice the size of Rome´s St Peter´s Square) an new epic church has been recently built to hold 9000 people. To the side of the Piazza the tree in which the Virgin Mary appreared is long gone with a small glass chapel in its place. As for the farm village, sadly, that is now a busy, commercial town overtaken by pilgrims and tourists, and drowned in tacky souvenier shops.
Leaving our parents to return to Cascais it was time to move quickly on to Porto. The bus station, my parents assured me, had been improved, but you could have fooled me: it was pretty grotty and didn´t even look like a bus station from the road!
As we were getting into the swing of being on the road again, we arrived in Porto to find the budget guesthouse we were aiming for was closed for renovations. After our initial disappoinment luck was with us - as we turned around wondering what to do next, we saw the word ´HOSTEL´ across the street and discovered yet another gem - functional, friendly, helpful and the big one... clean. Phew! * Mush
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