Walking the Camino de Santiago
Pilgrim reports from the Camino.
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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Cool and drizzly morning. We started late, as today was to be a short day. Breakfast in the albergue, followed by a trip to the post office to send forward my uneeded gear. Forgot to set the tracker until we were over an hour out of Tineo. A long steady uphill through forests overlooking steep hillside pastures. We passed a […]
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Late start this morning. We had breakfast in the albergue at 7 AM, and it was an hour later that we finally managed to get out the door. Shallow uphill climb out of town; nothing like yesterday, though. Under the forest canopy, through a land filled with bubbling streams and waterfalls, tiny grottoes and hulking industrial ruins. This was followed […]
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The long 5 km climb out of Grado is brutal. The last push is steep enough that you almost want to scramble up on all fours. After this, the terrain is much more reasonable, though like yesterday there’s an awful lot of walking on concrete. There’s a little in the way of pilgrim services the first half of the day […]
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I’m posting this in the early morning hours of May 10. Yesterday we walked our first stage of the Camino Primitivo, approximately 27 km. We left our hotel just after dawn. The walk out of the city was cool and pleasant, although by the time we got into the countryside, the mist was already starting to burn off in the […]
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Today we’re spending the day in the beautiful and delightful city of Oviedo. Sunday Mass at the cathedral – a stunning and majestic edifice constructed over the course of eight centuries. Somehow the succession of different architectural styles of the centuries blend into a harmonious whole. For breakfast I indulged in my typical Camino breakfast of café con leche and […]
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