All of us have moments of reflection. Times of the day when we make decisions, that we think what we are going to say, or we decide what’s the next step on the crossroad of life.
For example, is common, those moments to come just before we fall asleep. In the darkness of the bedroom, lying down, is when the biggest decisions are made, the time to reflect about what happened and what might.
Some have those moments on the morning shower, and also common, while shaving the beard. Like the British Pop band Oasis wrote on their song “What’s the Story Morning Glory”:
“All your dreams are made
When you change in mirror
Or face the razorblade.
Today is the day…”
Whenever one does it, the daily repetition of a task, during years, makes it happen automatically, in those decisive moments.
All this, to write about the daily trip we all make everyday to our workplace. Yes! All of us travel everyday, just no one sees it as a trip, because we only associate travel with holidays.
Some take minutes, others take hours, anyway in the total useful time of our life, it has a big importance all spent on the daily locomotion to work.
Of course, if tomorrow I catch the bus that someone takes everyday to work, and that person make the 98km that I do for the last 3 years from Barreiro to Almeirim, both of us will “break the routine” and feel like traveling.
If I choose to go trough the highway, it’s faster, but more expensive and boring. The company of the radio and music becomes important in such minutes.
Nevertheless the national road 118 is full of small details and interesting places that in a sunny free day I decided to explore better. Hundreds of times I made that path, but always in a hurry to get on time to work. I recommend for those who “travel” to work, in a sunny day, explore the nature and the cities of those daily routes.
Based on questions made by close friends, I erase here some doubts:
I don’t work in Sumol.
I don’t work in Santarém. No, it isn’t closer to go trough Lisbon and to A1, because the highway exit is in Santarém and Almeirim is on the south margin of the river, so I would have to cross it twice.
No, it doesn’t take 30 minutes, and it isn’t quick. Even on the opposite way to traffic, it takes at least one hour respecting the speed limits, of course.
My daily trip is pointed in purple on the following map:
I get out of Almeirim, the row of stone soup restaurants, far away the plane, on the other side of Tagus, Santarém, imponent on the top of the only hill, and I get on 
the national road 118. I say “hi” to the familiar faces, I fix my belt, I tune the radio and there I go.
After passing several wine cellars and farms and some signs announcing: “wine routes of Ribatejo district”, I reach Benfica do Ribatejo. A shop of wine at the entrance, the houses aligned along the road, a branch from the agriculture bank and upps, already passed.
The first big pit stop on the map after Almeirim is Muge. Following is a photo of the church just entering the village and a saint that is full with flowers all the year around and that protects the travelers that passes by.
Everything is straight, even the road. Both sides with cultivated fields mixing tones of green and yellow. In the endless straight road to Salvaterra de Magos, one still passes trough Marinhais. In the gas station there is always party on the weekend nights. Funny to see so many drivers, local natives, homies, “loading” themselves with beer and follow their trips already in wonderful moods.
Makes you think… with so many campaigns against driving under the effects of alcohol, how is it possible to buy beer and wine in gas stations?
All to notice the decorated house, in a “old west” style, with a big sign saying “DANCETERIA O ASSADOR”
After a local research, danceteria are places for old people to go to eat and step a bit into the dance floor with their partners or a new lover. Social environment with live music. A kind of restaurant / disco for the “matures”.
Now arriving to Salvaterra de Magos! Great town, yes indeed! And as all the population centre of Ribatejo region, there is a bull fighting arena and a roundabout with a statue of a bullfighting scene.
Notice the poster on the bullfighting arena announcing the big artist Mickael Carrera, son of the already legendary Tony Carrera… very good… a kind of Enrique and Julio Iglesias Portuguese version.
Just before arriving to Benavente I had already noticed a small coffee place just by a small river and I decided to make a stop. Crossing under the national road, a peaceful place of tranquility perfect for those lazy afternoons of summer.
At this point of the trip the landscape starts to have more water. Some rice fields, the view keeps plain, but the traffic rises when reaching Porto Alto, an important crossing with the road N10 where you can cross the old bridge to Vila Franca de Xira. Bridge that was, during a lot of years, the nearest of Lisbon and only way to cross the river Tagus.
The next road sign is in the crossing in Porto Alto and caught my imagination!
The road signs are to inform drivers, but this one just informs that about hunger no one has to worry in Portugal.
If it had the names of the restaurants I could understand, but this way no…
Typical conversation between couple:
“Where are we going for lunch, darling? In the left one or the one on the right? Oh.. Just forget it and let’s go to McDonald’s."
Another 2 long straight roads and I arrive to Alcochete, already with Lisbon on the horizon on the other side of the river that at this point is already an estuary. In the plain green and yellow landscape, the artillery cannon and the jet plane of the army shooting range are an important and shocking view. Even more now with the possibility of being the place for the future Lisbon airport.
And there is little to tell. When reaching Montijo there is the huge shopping center called Fórum, and there are still another 20km to make in a boring highway to reach home. Without counting with the pleasant smells from the cows and pigs farms around the road.
How is your way to work? How would you describe it?
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