Walking the Camino de Santiago
Thunderstorms and vicious wind last night. The initial gust came during dinner, and I saw outside dining tables skittering across the sidewalk. It calmed down after that for several hours, but in the middle of the night, the skies opened. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by morning. The way out of Melide is much more pleasant than the way in. […]
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Great night’s sleep in Ponte Ferreira and an early breakfast. They put on quite a spread, which was much appreciated. Last night’s communal pilgrim dinner was similarly lavish, and vegetarian for a Friday for us. Another cool, misty morning in Galicia. Once again, we were determined to get as many kilometers behind us as possible before the sun burned off […]
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On the road again! The city walk out of Lugo was surprisingly short. We left the old city by the Santiago gate near the cathedral, and after a short walk we’re crossing the old Roman bridge over the river. We walked along the river for a bit, passing through the old village, now neighborhood, of San Lazaro. This was famous […]
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Today we took rest day in the lovely center of the city of Lugo. After breakfast with Alice and Amy, we ducked into a Dominican church to pay our respects and take some photos. And then, we walked the Roman walls. Lugo is the only city in the world that retains its original Roman walls, which circumnavigate the entirety of […]
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Another short day. We left the village later than expected, mostly thanks to pilgrim camaraderie and conversation at breakfast in the albergue with the Double A’s and Wendy from the UK and Patrizia from Brazil. The village itself was larger than I expected, considering that it was supposedly too small to be on any of our maps. Dirt roads this […]
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Short day today. Francine has some pretty awful blisters, so we thought we would break up what would’ve been today’s 30 km death-march to Lugo. Instead, we will walk two shorter days of about 15 km each, and then take our planned rest day in the Cathedral city of Lugo. This meant we had to bid a fond farewell to […]
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It’s Galicia, and that means rain! Mostly of the cool, drizzly variety familiar to those of us living in the Pacific Northwest. Started the day early, and I completely failed to get breakfast or coffee. I broke the cardinal rule of the Camino Primitivo: stop in every café. And for this, I suffered. Lovely quiet trails through the Galician forests […]
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Today we crossed from the principality of Asturias into the province of Galicia, which was itself a kingdom of old. We had planned to be out the door by 6 AM, and had prepared accordingly with prepackaged breakfasts and a handle on where the coffee maker in the albergue was. In the event, it was 6:40 before we made it […]
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Today was difficult, but it was a comfortable sort of difficult, if that makes sense, after yesterday‘s sheer brutality. This morning began with a fatiguing ascent out of town up a long ridge of stone. Francine referred to this as “walking up the dragon’s spine“. Then we had a bit of easy roadwalking along a rural blacktop winding around deep […]
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Today we climbed to the top of the Camino Primitivo. After Borres, the Camino route splits into two options: a low road and a high road. Paradoxically, the high road probably has easier climbs, at least according to those who have done both. The downhill, on the other hand… The mountains were enshrouded in mist the whole climb, and on […]
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