Day 36 - Up the river

Today we drove inland to Pinhao in the port wine grape growing region of Portugal, following the Douro River through terraced vineyards. It was a beautiful day and it got steadily warmer as we headed away from the coast.

After a short stop for a coffee in Peso de Regua where there were larger cruise boats waiting to pick up passengers for their Douro cruises, we made it to Pinhao. We were a little lost when we arrived as we couldn't see any obvious signs pointing to where we could get a boat trip, but after asking around we were pointed in the right direction.

We booked one of the short 45 minute cruises for 2:30pm, so had time to enjoy a nice lunch overlooking the river. The boat trip was quite pleasant, it was a short trip up the river past more vineyards.

After the boat ride we drove to Aveiro on the coast south of Lisbon, where we checked in to a great, modern apartment that overlooked one of the canals that ran through town. A quick wander through the streets was followed by dinner, where the waiter couldn't quite understand why we didn't want him to turn the soccer on while we were having our dinner!

Day 35 - Any port in a storm

A slower start this morning as we headed into Porto, then dropped in to a chocolate shop to give us a kick start to the day. 

After we walked back down to the river along to the Luis bridge where we took the lower level to cross the river to the Gaia side. 

This side of the river is the traditional port (as in port wine) side as it faces the north, meaning the weather is better for aging the port. We took a guided tour of Calem cellars where we saw the huge port barrels and learnt about the different varieties of port, culminating in a tasting. 

From there we walked up the steep hill to walk back across the river via the Luis bridge's top level, which had wonderful views. 

As we walked the streets to find a tapas place to finish off the day we again walked past the famed Harry Potter book shop where there were no long queues so we could peek inside to see the famed bookshop from the doorway. As with all popular tourist attractions it's best to turn up at the end of the day when the crowds have already left.

Day 34 - We'll cross that bridge when we come to it

We had booked a 10am walking tour of Porto and the train station was just outside our apartment which made it easy. We met the walking tour at bishops statue. Our walking guide was very entertaining filling us in on history and stories in a very millennial way. He took us past the bookshop where J.K.Rowling wrote the beginning of Harry Potter Philosophers Stone. The interior of the bookshop with it's intricate staircase coupled with the unusual robes that the local university students wore were a large inspiration for the books. The charge for entering the bookshop was 5 euro and the length of the queue was incredible, so we did not enter.

The sun was out and it was a beautiful day so we took the guide's recommendation to try a Porto Tonico over lunch looking over the Douro river. We then joined an hour's boat trip past the six bridges. Porto is a real mixture of way too many tourists clogging up the streets but if you glance up there are elderly people sitting on their balconys and neighbours washing hanging next door. It's unusual for locals to still be living in such a tourist hot spot, I wonder how much longer they have? 

We caught the train back to our apartment so we could collect our car to drive to Ponte de Lima to meet Jessica and Ricardo for dinner. We parked near the river and walked over the medieval/Roman bridge before Ricardo took us on a personalised walking tour of the pretty town. 

We saw the statue of the Roman General on one side of the river and all the soldiers lined up on the other. Ricardo told us the story of how the Roman soldiers refused to cross the river as they believed a fable that once they crossed it they would lose all of their past memories, so the General crossed the river and called them one at a time by name to prove he still had his memory.

Our dinner was huge, Mike and Ricardo shared half a pig (really just a pork knuckle) while Sue and K shared a massive fish. On our way back to our car there was a large group celebrating a local festival. Ricardo explained to us that it was a harvest celebration and a way for old people to teach the young the harvesting traditions. The music was lively as they danced a traditional dance that looked pretty easy but Jessica assured us that she had tried it and it wasn't as easy as it looked. There was a large tray at the back of a tractor full of slashed corn stalks, the older women were grabbing the stalks, ripping off the corn cobs and throwing them into a basket - all in time with the music.

Day 33 - Back to a more comfortable mode of transportation

We checked out just after 8am so we could collect our rental car at Santiago's railway station around 9am when the agency opened. We rolled our luggage through the streets in the steady rain as everyone was on their way to school or work, luckily it was all downhill. 

Once the car was collected we drove to "the end of the land" at Finisterre (Fin = end and Terre = land), the westernmost point of mainland Spain. It is also part of the extension to the Camino, as this was where the original pilgrims would collect their scallop shells from the ocean to prove that they had completed the pilgrimage. It was raining steadily so we were pleased we weren't walking today. We did see a sprinkling of pilgrims soldiering on but no one that we recognised. It wasn't a great day to visit the ocean but we stopped for a coffee before planning our route to Portugal, though we had to backtrack towards Santiago for quite a while. 

Our first stop was a quick and tasty lunch at Jessica's lovely house in Ponte do Lima, after that we drove to Porto airport to pick up Sue who had arrived from London. 

After checking in to our Airbnb in the outskirts of Porto we walked through the nearby Praça de Mouzinho de Albuquerque, a park in the middle of a giant roundabout with a huge column topped with a statue of a lion on top of a bird which we could see from our airbnb, After that dinner at a nearby Portugese grill restaurant to finish the day.

Day 32 - Iterum me non ambulabit

An easy  (0 km!) day today, catch up on washing and getting our stuff sorted after two weeks of walking everyday. 

We headed down to the Pilgrim's office at 10.30 to collect our tickets in the queue for the Compostela. At 2pm we headed back to the Pilgrim's office after keeping an eye on our numbers online, around 2.30, 24 hours after we arrived we were given our certificates with our names written in Latin. 

Our Airbnb looked over the road that the pilgrims take to enter so there was always a stream of people going past our balcony - so perhaps maybe someone up there had seen us come through yesterday.

Santiago itself is quite different to other tourist cities we've visited, this one has large numbers of people walking around with backpacks and luggage, and it's difficult to see any locals other than in the shops selling trinkets and souvenirs. Hopefully the city gets to resume some sense of normality in the off season, at the moment it's just one big tourist town, with didgeridoo playing buskers, human statues and bagpipe players plying their trade ... so much for it being the end goal of a Catholic pilgrimage of hundreds of kilometres. 

Day 31 - The finish line

After almost two weeks of walking it was about to finish - by this stage the 20km left seemed like a stroll in the park, though there were still some steep climbs. There were plenty of people on the route but everyone seemed quieter and more subdued. Lots more eucalyptus forest, and we passed a tree with photos of random people including Michael Jackson, but even stranger was that there was a Collingwood scarf hanging next to the pic - it seems there are some things you just can't escape. 

The outskirts of Santiago were quite urbanised, at one point walking around the edge of the airport, and in case we didn't quite realise where we were we had three Ryanair planes fly right over our heads in the space of about five minutes. We also noticed a lot more souvenir related shops ... there hadn't been that much along the way, but Santiago was the Camino souvenir hotspot.

The closer we got to Santiago the number of walkers grew, many of them we had never seen before, where had they all come from? We followed the signs and found ourselves in front of the Cathedral, where there were people just sitting on the cobblestones. Unlike many of the other plazas with cathedrals we had seen the square was devoid of shops and cafes. We had presumed that when we finally arrived that the end point would be obvious, but there was no finish line, no fanfare ... just a giant cathedral, lots of stick walkers.... and us.

We wandered aimlessly for a while and eventually found ourselves heading for the pilgrim check in point so that we could collect our Compostela (like a certificate of completion). As we approached we were met by a guy we'd seen a couple of times before, he was known as "Father John", and he seemed to have positioned himself at the closest bar to the pilgrim's office to greet everyone as they arrive. We are actually a little suspicious and have wondered if he is a priest, as we had only ever seen him at bars with a drink in his hand.

The pilgrim's office gives out tickets with a number so you can come back later for your compostela, but when we arrived we were told that there were no more tickets for the day and that they would reopen at 8am tomorrow. A bit of an anticlimax, we walked all this way and never had a sleep in and we have to get up early tomorrow?

Our found our Airbnb apartment which was very close to the action with a view of pilgrims arriving, collected our luggage from the post office, started our two weeks worth of washing, went shopping for dinner and then finally put our feet up ... after over 310km of walking in 13 days.

Day 30 - The beginning of the end

Second last day, and a nice short one too - hard to believe we'd covered nearly 300km already. It had been raining but there was a respite as we started off, and after leaving town we found ourselves walking into some quite large eucalyptus forests that reminded us a lot of home.

Lunch was at a roadside restaurant where we shared a meal of zorza and chips ... zorza being a kind of spiced pork that is used in making chorizos ... so it became M's new favourite meal of the trip.

The forest walk from earlier in the day didn't last long, so again we were following the path along the side of the road - if you want a picturesque and peaceful nature walk the last 100km of the Camino is not for you!

Being such a short day (only 18 or so kilometres) we made in into O Pedruozo mid afternoon, and after a short rest quickly explored the town, before settling on a meal which for M consisted once again of zorsa and chips ... when you're on a good thing .....

Day 29 - Don't you realise this is a religious experience?

We were on the road to Arzua before 8am, there didn't seem to be as many people around as the previous day, so it was a little more like the mornings before we reached Sarria. It was still cool and we ticked off our first 8km by 10am before stopping for some coffee and Santiago cake. It's easy to justify eating cake everyday when you are walking more than 20km. 

Our lunch stop was at the 15km halfway mark in Melide, the biggest city we have seen for quite a while. After a leisurely lunch we resumed along with lots of other walkers who'd also picked Melide for their lunch stop. 

Over the last couple of days we had run into groups of quite poorly behaved Irish teenage boys on a school trip who had started in Sarria. In general their language was quite foul and as we encountered them once again on the road into Arzua K decided she'd had enough, so she turned around and told them off for their language. They were momentarily stunned into silence but didn't offer an apology, they seemed to have missed the memo that this was a religious pilgrim walk. 

Virgin Mary and friend

There weren't as many hills today but one in particular was quite brutal so after 28km we were glad to walk into Arzua even though it was raining. At the first bar we walked past were two American girls we had run into a few times so we sat down and had a drink with them and discovered we were staying at the same albergue.

Our albergue had a lovely modern bathroom but unfortunately the shower was on an annoying 30 second timer ... not the sort of thing ed had expected for our €55! In general we'd found that Camino prices for accommodation were quite a bit higher than equivalent places off the Camino ... the price you pay for being completely unoriginal and doing the same things in the same order on the same route at the same time as a thousand other people!

Day 28 - Like a flock of sheep

Dark and gloomy this morning as it had been raining overnight, and rain was expected throughout the day - still a pleasant change from the heat of the previous week as it wasn't cold.

The crowd of walkers seemed to have grown, we felt like sheep as we followed the long line of walkers along a trail that included roads for much of the way. We had heard it would be busy but this was getting ridiculous.

Early on as we left Portomarin we passed the archaeological site of Castromaoior. It was just a few minutes off the track but of the hundreds of pilgrims that passed while we were there only one other person stopped to have a look. It was one of the better sites we'd passed on the Camino and well worth the visit, a bit disappointing that almost none of the walkers showed any interest though.

The rest of the day was pretty standard for us by now, though we did find that the high number of pilgrims was detracting from the experience. There was always chatter and the "click click" of sticks. As far as the chatter went (and at the risk of appearing to be guilty of racial stereotyping) we found the Spanish speakers to be the worst. They would typically travel in larger groups, and would never, ever, ever shut up! You could hear them coming from behind, getting louder and louder, once they'd passed you'd be hopeful that some silence would return, but there was always another group to take their place.

The stick walkers were another pet peeve ... the click click click was starting to get to us, and you could hear them from even further away than the Spanish! How is it that these people learnt to walk without sticks and have been successfully walking around unaided for decades, but all of a sudden because they are on the Camino they can't function on a perfectly level, well made path without using two sticks for assistance? As K had found the sticks did have their uses, but was it really necessary to use them all the time?

We arrived in Palas de Rei mid afternoon, after a walk of about 25km. We turned up to our hostal and were taken to another room in another building -  a bit of a surprise but in the end the room was fine. For dinner we ended up in a place that looked really basic and seemed a bit too quiet, but the one woman who was doing all of the cooking provided us with one of the better meals we'd had on the Camino - basic food, but tasty and nicely cooked.

Day 27 - End of quiet

Sarria is the most popular place to start the Camino as from there it is just over 100km to Santiago, so there were a lot more peregrinos ready to start this morning as we went for breakfast at 8am. We chose a quiet cafe but within five minutes it was full of Spanish walkers talking very loudly, it seemed that any chance of solitude is finished for the rest of our Camino.

We walked past some large groups, name tagged with guides and wearing new shoes and clean clothes, it was easy to spot the newbies. Before this point the cyclists had been a bit of a nuisance but mostly harmless, but today we noticed many more who insisted on taking the walking track rather than the road, and ringing or shouting and expecting us to just jump out of the way so that they wouldn't have to slow down .... how rude! 

Another group on our gripe list was the noisy stick walkers, especially those who have bought the cheap sticks without rubber tips, which create so much noise clicking on the stones and bitumen, they insist on tapping their sticks even when walking on perfectly level paths where you'd expect there to be little to no advantage.

We were only a few km out of Sarria when we came across a support van that was giving out drinks and snacks to their group, we would continue to encounter the van during the day. We walked in light showers and drizzle, the first real rain we had seen and the drop in temperature was welcome. There were many more shops and stalls along the way and at one point we were asked to sign a petition, we knew this was a scam so ignored them of course. 

Today was the easiest leg of the walk to date, fortunately the crowds we experienced in the morning thinned out as the day progressed, we found a quiet place for a late lunch before we arrived into Portomarin for the night and the rain set in for the evening.

Day 26 - Nice and quiet for once

Leaving Triacastela we had two possible routes. The main route was 6.5km shorter but had a lot of steep ascents, so K decided that as she and her legs were too tired to cope with another steep hill we would take the longer easier walk, and once she'd had enough she would catch a taxi to Sarria.

We knew that this route would be quieter but were pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was, for once there was no endless Spanish chatter, and no "tap tap tap" of stick walkers on rock. The path followed the highway in the beginning but then diverged and lead us through some lovely countryside and villages in which the only sign the of the Camino was the yellow arrows along the way. 

At the end of one steep climb we found a lovely modern cafe which was a great coffee stop before we hit the road again. The ascents and descents became much steeper and the path on some of the descents had deteriorated to shale, the final descent into the pretty town of Somos was very long and steep. This is what finally did K in as she called it quits after about 11km. 

There is a large monastery in town and a surprising number of tourists who definitely had not walked there via the route we had taken. The local tourist office were very helpful and found a taxi who drove K on to Sarria, while M continued to walk.

M arrived a couple of hours later saying the path was quite difficult at times so K was pleased she hadn't attempted it. We sat outside a restaurant in Sarria very close to our albergue, a man we had met on day 1 came up and re-introduced himself, then two American girls we had met the day before joined us. A Brazilian man they had already met also joined us, he'd had a fall and had a couple of stitches above his eye. Wine was consumed and Camino stories shared, the girls said that the guy from the first day was a priest and he knew everyone on the trail, but he sure seemed to drink a lot for a priest ....

Day 25 - Wrong turn!

At 8am our hosts drove us back to O Cebriero to resume our walk. The view was very interesting, it looked like there were lakes in the distance but what we were seeing was clouds. There were pilgrims watching the sunrise and we were told that the lost Italian lady had been found, she had been too exhausted to continue walking and had been taken to a doctor.

The walk was the most beautiful so far of all our days on the Camino as we began at the top of the mountain and had huge views of the rolling hills. We knew we had a big descent today so we weren't surprised when when we started on a steep downhill stretch, and we were pleased it was a bitumen road as it was so much easier on our feet than the rocky gravel stretches. We were a little surprised that we didn't see any other walkers but were too busy enjoying the solitude and the view to worry too much. A car going the same direction as us slowed down and asked if we were doing the Camino, when we replied with a yes. He then told us that this wasn't the Camino - we had taken a wrong turn. We realised we had to walk back up the hill, and to add insult to injury another car coming in our direction slowed down and laughed at us then drove on without even offering us a lift! There was another couple that had done the same as but hadn't gone as far down the hill, at the corner where the signage was ambiguous the other lady got some tape out of her bag and made a large arrow on the sign while swearing loudly in English even though she was Spanish.

From there we continued upwards, the climb to the top at Alto de Poio was steep and tough but everyone was rewarded with a very busy cafe to recuperate. From here we continued through the villages with dairy cows wearing bells as they do in Switzerland. In one village the cows were coming back from milking and the tourists were taking videos and selfies - so they had to be the city people! A peek inside the milking shed showed no sign of machinery, just metal yokes for the cows to place their heads in. 

3km from our final stop at Triacastela we had a break at a nice cafe and met a young German girl walking on her own. The route at this point was predominantly downhill so hard on the knees and calves, so the girl gave K a stick to use and this eased some of the pressure on the knees and minimised the risk of slipping.

For some reason today we had been shadowed for much of the way by a Spanish man who had not drawn breath for the entire day,  so we were pleased we managed to give him the slip at the last break. We arrived into Triacastela around 5pm, 9 hours and 25ks after we started the day.

Day 24 - The long climb

The day started in sunshine as we walked with our fellow pilgrims along a path that ran parallel with the road and at times crossed a large freeway. Fortunately it was generally protected from the road so we didn't need to spend too much time competing with cars, though bikes were starting to become a problem as they seemed to prefer the walking trail to the road much of the time, but made little effort to slow down when they passed walkers.

K still had some lingering foot trouble so after about 16km when we reached the town of Vega de Valcarce she arranged for a taxi while M pressed on. From there the way diverged from the larger roads and turned into a very pleasant trail through some green and hilly countryside. Just past the town of Las Herrerias the path started heading upwards - this was the beginning of the 8km climb to O Cebreiro.

The scenery was the best so far on the Camino, going past farmland, over bridges and along streams, via narrow and shady paths. As the path entered O Cebreiro at the top of the climb there were some great views over the surrounding countryside.

The small town of O Cebreiro was very busy, as it was an attraction for general tourists as well as Camino pilgrims. It is also one of the busiest stops on the Camino and mainly had just shared accommodation, so we had booked a stay off the mountain, which included transportation between the room and O Cebreiro. As a result we waited a while and had some drinks and dinner on O Cebreiro before contacting out hosts.

There was a slight mixup with the spot where we had to meet the car, which meant we got to our room a bit later than we'd hoped, and while waiting we saw police and found out that someone had been reported lost along the way, apparently it was an Italian man or woman whose partner had reported them missing.

Day 23 - Camino cheats

We left the lovely town of Molinaseca and started the walk to Ponferrada. We walked the last few km into town with an American lady who had started at the beginning of the Camino Frances at Saint-Jean Pied-de-Port in France. We left her at the impressive castle in Ponferrada which holds the Knights Templar library. 

By the time we arrived into the middle of Ponferrada K had decided that her feet and muscles had had enough and she was going to catch the bus the remaining 24km to Villafranca del Bierzo, though she had to wait an hour an half for the next bus.

In the meantime M continued walking, following the well marked trail, much of it along the road. At one point M caught up with the Australian guy that had sat with us at dinner the previous night, and walked the last 10km or so with him. Interestingly, about 5km from the destination a bus pulled up and around 10 pilgrims hopped off and started walking ... Camino cheats caught in the act!

M arrived into town around 4pm after walking around 32km in around 30 degree heat, while K had spent the afternoon "rehydrating" in the town square. At least this time K had made some efforts towards embracing the true spirit of the Camino, and made sure there was a cold drink waiting for M when he arrived!

Day 22 - Possessed by the true spirit of the Camino

It was quite cool when we left, and it only got colder as we headed upwards towards Cruz de Hierro,  the highest point in the walk. On previous days any morning haze had cleared after about an hour to result in a clear sunny day, but this time it got thicker as we went. The surroundings were changing as well, we were leaving the cultivated lower lands for more natural territory. It wasn't a difficult climb as such, just a long upwards walk, with not much in the way of proper rest stops along the way, so coffees were few and far between.

After Cruz de Hierro the downward trek began, the haze cleared revealing another warm day. The trail followed the road a lot of the way. K decided the more solid road surface was easier on her feet than the marked path, while M decided that deviation onto easier terrain was not in line with the true spirit of the Camino and stuck to the rocky trail.

By the time we reached the quite modern looking town of El Acebo at around the 20km mark we were more than ready for a rest and a drink, and it was at this point that K decided she would give her feet a break and take a taxi to the destination town, while M, embued with the true spirit of the Camino, carried on by foot.

From El Acebo the trail was quite steep and also quite rocky, passing through some nice looking villages along the way. M nimbly negotiated the downward path for the remaining 5km, leaving all the other less agile pilgrims behind. One of the best manoeuvres of the day was when he had to leap up onto the edge of the path and scramble over rocks to avoid those pesky French, who had decided that the best place to stop a group of 10 people in order to inconvenience others the most would be to plonk themselves in the middle of the path (of course, such blatant disregard for others is not in line with the true spirit of the Camino). At the end of this impromptu parkour demonstration he could hear exclamations of "sacre bleu!" in his wake.

The descent completed, M entered Molinaseca, a lovely town with an ancient bridge over a peaceful looking river. After such an athletic descent M was looking forward to basking in the inevitable adoration of K as he recounted his adventures of the day, instead K was asleep and quite annoyed because his arrival had woken her up. Internally, M questioned K's commitment to the true spirit of the Camino, but kept his reservations to himself, for he was still hopeful that K would eventually come to enjoy the same combination of physical exertion, religious enlightenment, and internal reflection that he had experienced on this momentous day.

Dinner was very enjoyable at a restaurant on the banks of the river just by the bridge, once again we took advantage of the three course pilgrims' meal, M was especially taken by the first course selection, ultimately settling on the chicken nuggets, which of course ended up being totally devoid of any chicken based content from what he could tell, fortunately the meal was rescued by the baked lamb which was very nice indeed.

We chatted to a Canadian couple and an Australian man, all of whom thought that the descent from El Acebo had been quite difficult. M nodded silently in agreement, though in reality he thought their bodies were experiencing weakness as they had failed to embrace the true spirit of the Camino in the way that he himself had been able to.


 

Day 21 - Those pesky French!

We headed off from Astorga with the threat of rain, passing quite a few grand old buildings on the way, before picking up the trail through smaller and quite nice villages, all of them with bars and cafes along the way heavily geared towards the Camino trade, which we of course took advantage of.

Coffee time!

By now we had started seeing the same faces day to day. Many of them would walk past, give a nod of recognition and say "Buen Camino" as they passed, others we would have a brief chat to, but we noticed that some groups didn't seem so friendly or polite. One group we took special note of was one of around 10 older French people. We could hear them coming from a long way behind, nattering away in French, and completely ignoring us as they passed. They would then stop as a group and wait for their stragglers to catch up, meaning we would pass them. Our first couple of "Buen Caminos" as we passed were generally ignored, so we ended up ignoring them too (yes, just as bad), as the cycle would repeat a number of times as the day progressed. Our pet peeves on the Camino didn't just include the French though ... it's hard to believe but there others who irritated us even more ... something we will cover in another installment!

Our nemesis ... those pesky French!

Much of the time we followed a path that was parallel to the road, sometimes we were on the side of the road. You couldn't really call it a "nature walk" by any means -  this was mainly farmland or scrub, or walking through villages. It was pretty well marked by route markers along the way, as well as yellow painted arrows on the road or on walls in the villages.

Our destination was the small town of Rabanal Del Camino, just 20km from Astorga, so we made it to our nice albergue outside town well before 4pm. We rewarded our efforts by sitting in the sun with a drink and a packet of chips (or two), and chatted to an Irish group who had walked the Camino a couple of times before. They had used a guide both those times, which seemed a bit strange to us, since why would you need a guide if you could follow yellow arrows and knew how to use booking.com?