Galicia in the Autumn

After walking the Camino Francés in 2013 from Roncesvalles and in 2016 from St Jean, Francine and I were busy planning our next Spanish adventure for 2020. The plan was that I would walk the Francés from St Jean (or possibly Lourdes), while she took a flat in Burgos to work on her historical romance book about the Camino. When I was done walking, we’d meet up and explore some of the places along the Camino in more depth, travelling by train or bus.

Life is funny.

We’re still planning 2020, but the pull of the Camino was stronger than we expected. One thing led to another, and a couple of weeks ago we bought tickets for a short Camino this October “just to tide us over” until 2020.

Those following our Camino Photo of the Day series know that we’re up to the final Kingdom of Spain that the Camino crosses: Galicia.

Well, in 45 days, Francine and I will be winging our way back to Spain to walk the Galician portion of the Camino. In my defense, the airfare was absurdly cheap. As in, it was cheaper to fly to Madrid than it was to Mexico. Or New York. Or Chicago.

Our plan is to fly to Madrid and take a bus from there to Pedrafita do Cebreiro – I bought the bus tickets this morning. This little town is just 4km away from O Cebreiro, which is our planned starting point. We’ll probably take a cab there.

O Cebreiro is the start of the Camino Francés in Galicia. It’s about 160 km (100 miles) to Santiago, which we plan to do slowly, in perhaps 10 or 11 days. This will be our first Autumnal Camino.

We still have all of the equipment from our last Camino – packs and clothes and such – although I did have to get a new fleece and I’ll certainly need fresh hiking shoes.

And we did splurge on a new guidebook.