Monday 5 October 2026 – Bringing down our bags for collection and going into breakfast coincided nicely; a decent hotel breakfast later, we were on our way. We walked out of the hotel to find that market stalls were being set up in the road outside.

It’s a big market, stretching along the whole length of the street, right up to the Roman bridge across the Bermaña.

So, let’s take a check on the state of the crowding….

Oh, well – could have been a lot worse. Actually the bugbear today was the almost ceaseless flow of bicycles through the stream of pilgrims.

Even with a wide path, pilgrims had to scatter when bicycles came through; and there were a couple of times later on in the day, when the basic slope was downhill, that those on foot had to shout at the cyclists to slow down, because of the risk of a collision.  I hope that The Powers That Be address this problem. On the Francés, there is actually a specific and often separate route for cyclists which is signposted so that, although the tracks are very close, there’s almost no overlap, and certainly none where the track is narrow.

We were continuing on the route of the Roman Via XIX

which led past a chapel dedicated to San Roque, the patron saint of Caldas de Rei,

portrayed, as ever, coyly lifting his robe.

Our natural pace seemed to be slightly faster than most people’s, so once we’d overtaken the initial group we were following, the trail was relatively uncrowded.

I certainly didn’t feel as claustrophobic as I had a couple of days ago. There was the usual array of entrepreneurial pop-ups along the way.

One of them was doing wax sellos, offering a wide variety of colours and finishes,

but our experience is that wax stamps are too fragile, so we didn’t take up on any.  These wax stamps seem to be a new thing within the last couple of years; we didn’t notice any on the Francés or Finisterre routes we did in 2023 and ’24.

Individual vignettes:

There were two pipers, neither very good: one with a guitar accompanist who was even worse;

and one who was worse, with a drummer accompanist who must have despaired at the piper’s appalling sense of rhythm.

The overall route was about 8km of uphill pull, mainly gentle, occasionally steeper but always relentlessly up, followed by some steeper downhill leading into the outskirts of Padrón. It was always pleasant walking, in sunshine and temperatures in the 20s. Of course, having got up the hills, we got to see some decent views.

We saw a couple of mystery objects as we approached Padrón.

and something that wasn’t at all a mystery object.

We didn’t stop at this beer stop, but we did have a couple of coffee stops. We had planned the second one at this place, which advertised itself from quite a distance away,

but were seduced by the sudden apearance on our right of this one,

where, delightfully, we bumped once again into Angus and Linda, the couple we’d spent a lot of time walking with yesterday.

Before reaching Padrón, we passed through Pontecesures, which seemed pretty pleased to have made it to 100.

Just outside it was an interesting garden: in one part, there were many gourds hanging in a line (presumably to dry out)

and in the part nearer the house, there were more gourds, obviously having gone through a paint job.

I’m surprised they didn’t have a stall selling gourds to any passers-by who happened to have a large stick about their person.

The Camino reaches Padrón via a bridge across the river Ulla, called the Pilgrim Bridge

from which one can see a large industrial complex

that we think is an alumnium production plant.

We parted company with Angus and Linda at this point and headed in to the town, past a good view of an impressive convent, the Carmelite Convento do Carmen,

and arrived at our hotel, the Hotel Corona Padron, where both a room and our bags were available. Our room had a kettle and a fridge, so making tea became top priority and a cup of Twinings finest Earl Grey started the process of re-energising us after 19.5km. It was good walking, but we were both a bit tired. However, there were some Things To See in the town, so, having established the opening time of a particular church of interest, we went for a walk. Obviously.

The church in question is the Santiago church, which is labelled “Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol de Padrón”, here seen on the other side of the old bridge over the river Sar.

Padrón plays a key role in the traditions surrounding St James. Legend has it that after the events of Christ’s death and resurrection, James the Apostle travelled to Hispania to preach, landing in Galicia at Padrón (then called Iria Flavia). He preached at a nearby chapel, Santiaguiño do Monte. Then after his eventual martyrdom in Jerusalem, his disciples took his body to Jaffa and set it in a stone boat, which, guided by angels, crossed the Mediterranean and reached Iria Flavia. They moored it to a pedrón, a stone, before burying his body inland at what became Santiago de Compostela.

That stone determined the location of the Santiago church in Padrón, which was built around it; the stone is now beneath the altar at the church and the town took its name from the stone pedrón.

The church has a splendid altar piece

with St. James at its head in his benevolent, saintly, pose.

At the back of the church is him in his Matamoros, Moor-slaying, persona.

San Roque gets a look in, too.

That stone is partially visible below the altar.

It’s inscribed in Latin, so actually is probably a Roman (pagan) altar stone that has been repurposed.

There are a couple of replicas of the stone, one of which can be found at the site of the chapel where the saint was held to have preached, the Chapel of Santiaguiño do Monte. We visited the site, and the word Monte is the operational one, here.

129 steps lead up to an area containing the chapel

with its sculpture of St. James baptising from a cockleshell.

The chapel iself was closed, but we peered in through various apertures to see the inside

with its statue of St. James on the right, with its faintly surprised expression.

Above the chapel is the Cross of Santiaguiño do Monte.

The replica pedrón bears a cockleshell,

though we’re not quite sure what for.

Back down in the town, we passed the monument to Rosalia de Castro,

the founding figure of modern Galician literature. Her Cantares gallegos (1863) launched the Rexurdimento, the revival of Galician as a literary language after centuries of neglect and belittlement as “a dialect only fit for the illiterate and the churlish”. The publication date, 17 May, is now Galicia’s Día das Letras Galegas. Born in Santiago, she spent her later years in Padrón, where she died in 1885, and where her house is now a museum.

We also saw the locals indulging in what I read is a very traditional Galcian game, Chave de Ferrolterra.

I don’t know the detail of the rules, but the basic objective is clear from the video.

We popped into a local supermarket to get some more milk so that we could indulge our tea habit. Out of curiosity, I visited the tea section, and – look what I found!

We were not, as it happens, in danger of running out (thanks again, Jessica), but it’s comforting to know that the Spanish haven’t the barbaric shortage that bedevils Portugal.

Tomorrow, most pilgrims leaving Padrón will walk to Santiago to finish their Caminho Português. We’re being a little lazy and splitting the final stage into two short walks, taking an overnight stay in Ribasar tomorrow night. We have only a short walk, therefore, which may well be a good thing, since there are two weather warnings out for the day – a storm warning and a rain warning. If we scuttle quickly along, we hope to avoid getting either drenched or blown to pieces. Fingers crossed!