Category Archives: Travel

Day 37 – Redondela to Pontevedra: My Sarría Moment

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Saturday 3 October 2026 – We made what was probably something of a tactical blunder in our timing of the day, and it’s all Accuweather’s fault! We had been expecting the possibility of thunderstorms and rain after 2pm, and had 21 or so kilometres to cover, so started out dead early; we took our voucher-paid breakfast at the nearby café at 7am and were on the road at just after 7.30.

Unfortunately, it seemed that so was the rest of the peregrino world.

I wrote yesterday about increased footfall; I write today about there being too many sodding pilgrims. I guess I had formed the opinion from yesterday that crowding would not be an issue. Today, it became clear that, for me at least, it was.  I had my Sarría moment today. To quote from that blog entry, “Yes, of course these people have a perfect right to be there; of course I’m being unreasonable. But I hated it. All day.” Today was like that, except not quite all day. It occurred to me, as the day wore on, that the actual number of people is not so much the issue. What triggers me is basically the noise; I like walking in almost complete silence and there was a lot of babble buggering my bubble. Yes, it’s their Camino; but their behaviour buggers up my Camino and I’m hoping that today has inoculated me for the five subsequent days that see us to Santiago.

I’m fairly sure that, had we left later, we would have experienced less crowding because we were on a “Brierley Stage” – a stage as documented by the sainted John Brierley in his extremely good and influential book on this Camino, which thus informs the accommodation and hiking strategies of a large number of the pilgrims. So a lot of people set out at about the same time on the same route; hence the crowds.

We had one exceedingly irritating peregrina today.

I very nearly plucked up the courage to say something to her, but my nerve failed me, so, for the half hour or so that she was in earshot, I simply fumed; it’s the British thing to do, after all.

A lot of photos I took today were about the crowds

A lot of others were about the myriad of pop-up/entrepreneurial sideshows along the way, offering sellos, shells, bracelets, food and other stuff that pilgrims might pay money for.

There was one musician by the wayside that I thought was worth paying; a piper, who was really quite good (if you like that kind of thing).

There were several bicigrinos – cyclists – who must have found the crowds even more aggravating than I did. There was also a very junior peregrina;

I wonder how far she will walk in total?

So, outside the crowds, how did the day go? The weather was fine – and this is where Accuweather had let us down, by providing the forecast that suggested we should start early. We had glorious sunshine all day, and temperatures around the mid-20s. There were a couple of hills to climb, steep in places

and with correspondingly steep descents.

Actually, the one above was at a point where we followed our online map rather than the waymarks. It led down to a major road a couple of hundred metres earlier than the “official” path

but there were still waymarks on it and, if you look carefully, you can see that the track is called “Camino dos Peregrinos”, so it seems that the Powers That Be are tinkering with the route for whatever reasons. Whatever, it gave us a short but well-appreciated dose of solitude as we walked.

We got some great views: as the sun came up, as we crossed the river Verdugo on the Puente Medieval de Pontesampaio, and as we reached the summit of the hills.

Naturally, at some of these lovely views, people were more interested in thrusting their gurning faces unnecessarily in them.

Quite often, though, people just slogged on past without registering them. Their choice, I suppose.

There were the usual sorts of wayside items that occur all along the major Camino routes.

There were coffee stops available, some at established cafés, some at more entreprenerial setups.

The best part of the day was towards the end, with about 7km to go:

another Complimentario. It added over a kilometre to the overall distance of the day, but for almost all of it was a delightful end to a walk that I’d found quite difficult to handle. Fewer people, lovely shady woodland and riparian scenes.

At the end, we passed under a couple of tunnels that had been well decorated

and arrived in the town of Pontevedra.

Sorry about the punter in the shot; life is too short to have waited for a gap where no-one was taking fucking selfies

There’s a memorable quote from the BBC’s Doctor Who on the nature of time: “People assume that Time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.”

One can say the same about Distance, which is not constant, despite what the International Committee for Weights and Measures would have you believe. The last kilometres of a long walk are much longer than the first kilometres, particularly when walking through the outskirts of a town.

To its credit, Pontevedra did its best to leaven the mix a bit.

That thing in the middle of the road there

is the official mark that says there are 64.5km between it and Santiago.

Pontevedra is the capital of its province in Galicia, on the Lérez river at the head of the Ría de Pontevedra. It began as a Roman settlement, then grew into a major medieval fishing and trading port. That prosperity faded in the 16th century when the river silted up and Vigo took over as the main harbour. Today it is known for its well-preserved granite old town of small plazas, along with the scallop-shaped Capela da Peregrina, the Renaissance Basilica of Santa María a Maior and the ruined Gothic convent of Santo Domingo.

Quite some history, then. We used the bits of the day not dedicated to checking into our hotel (Hotel Rúas) and getting lunch (an engaging place called Taberna Felix, just round the corner), to explore it a bit. To do that, we went for a walk. Obviously.

The first thing that struck us is that the old town in Pontevedra has a heck of a buzz on Saturday lunchtimes.

There are many elegant buildings, and the place has an engaging quality to it.

The Capela da Peregrina is a very distinctive shape.

On the outside, one can see St. James

and on the inside,

the statue of the Virgin Mary as Peregrina

and a handsome cupola, shaped like a cockleshell.

The Basilica is an impressive chunk of masonry viewed from the side

or the front.

Inside

it has a very intricate altar screen,

a statue which we now know to be of San Roque

and a decorative rose window.

The ruined Gothic convent is another impressive edifice, which must have been awe-inspiring in its day.

There’s another thing, of course, which concerns how the town got its name.

It comes from Latin Pons Vetus, “old bridge”, after the original Roman bridge over the Lérez; Ponte Vedra is the Galego form. The arches of the current, medieval bridge are fetchingly decorated with cockleshells,

appropriately enough, as we shall be walking out of the town across the bridge tomorrow morning.

Ah, yes: tomorrow. We have to get to Caldas de Rei, some 22km away – another Brierley stage, so likely to be crowded again. The weather forecast is for another decent day, so we plan to start walking around 9am in the hope that hoi polloi peregrini will have buggered off early and so we might get a bit of peace and quiet. Wish us luck!

Day 36 – O Porriño to Redondela: we had to work for the views

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Friday 2 October 2026 – Having got our bags out ready for collection by 8am, we partook of the generous breakfast provided at the apartment and then took our leave at around 9.20. The apartments are clearly set up for peregrinos; in ours, I found this in the bathroom,

and the neighbouring apartment’s name

is also a word closely associated with the various Caminos. I thought that the word was a modern invention, but apparently it’s a medieval expression, taken from the Codex Calixtinus, a 12th-century manuscript attributed to Pope Calixtus II and widely understood to be his journal of his own pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

We found our way back to the Camino route, past a statue that pays strong tribute to the granite processing that is O Porriños main industry,

and a sculpture of Antonio Palacios,

a very well-known Spaniard among architectural cognoscenti, who was born in the city and helped define the architectural identity of Madrid in the first half of the 20th century. Just outside the city, there’s a strongly Camino-branded tunnel under the motorway

(nice that the mural hasn’t had graffiti sprayed all over it), and just beyond the tunnel is “Stamp Man”

who will do you a lovely sello for your credencial. Jane has actually created a bit of a problem for herself by taking lots of stamps all along our Camino (excuse me? I think you mean exactly the right number to fill our credenciales – Ed) and so we hadn’t got (a) room for his stamp or (b) patience to wait in the queue, so we kept going.

The number of pilgrims there is an indicator that this section – the qualifying section for one’s compostela – has got a good footfall. It’s nowhere near as crowded as we found the final 100km of the Francés, but there are clearly enough peregrinos to sustain the entrepreneurial pop-ups we found along the route.  There were plenty of people walking, but we found ourselves alone in our own company quite a lot of the time. However, if we stopped to take a photo, or to take a detailed look at something along the way, it was often only seconds before pilgrims came up behind us.

Soon after Stamp Man is the 100km mark, meaning that it would theoretically be possible to get one’s compostela with a start in O Porriño. On the stage of the Francés which passes the 100km mark, there is an official waymark to note the point. On the Português, it’s a bit less formal.

One can derive the actual point only by inference from two successive waymarks.

There were a couple of miniature vignettes by the wayside: this tiny book exchange;

and this equally tiny horreo.

I’m not quite sure whether the model horreo has any purpose other than decoration; it’s not in a position, were it a letter box, for example, that the postman would be at all impressed with. But it’s dead cute.

By this stage of the day, we were approaching the halfway point, and a village called Mos, which has a pedestrian-only centre

and a cafeteria, which is part of an albergue at the heart of the pedestrian area. This, again, showed that the footfall was quite heavy.

I guess we got our timing wrong and were behind a “pulse” of peregrinos. I had to queue for 20 minutes to get our coffees. There was one lady behind the counter, being astonishingly active, serving people with coffee, heating snacks, filling the dishwasher, all in a blur of speed. It actually quietened down just after we got our drinks, and this meant that she could pop outside for a quick fag; but she still kept on being busy

picking up detritus, cleaning tables and, presumably, awaiting the next pulse of peregrinos to come through. It was frustrating to have to wait that long (particularly since we discovered a little – uncrowded – café across the way as we left) but I admired her work rate and efficiency. The albergue is in a pleasant setting

which offers views over the surounding countryside, if you don’t mind squinting into the sun. It is somewhat elevated, but is also the start of The Climb Of The Day; this is looking back down towards the village having walked up a little way.

The climb carries on up, and passed something that made me pause and take a photo:

“Lavadoiro do Cabaleiro” seemed to translate to me as “men’s laundry”, and I was puzzled by this. Is the idea that chaps should come wash their smalls here? Seems unlikely in a country which is still a little chauvinist in regard to household tasks. ChatGPT “thinks” that it may be related to a nearby Fonte de Cabaleiro, which relates to the name of the spring feeding the fountain.

There were plenty of people toiling up this section

and the road passed a couple of interesting scenes. It is difficult to know what went on here, but it looks like someone was a bit pissed off with someone else.

Also, there was this, outside a factory.

The factory didn’t seem to have any connection with soft drinks, so I have no idea why Coca-Cola are wishing us a good Camino, presumably in Galego (the language of Galicia).

The route changes from road to track, but still climbs ever upwards.

It was never hideously steep, but enough to give one a decent workout on the way. At the top, there is a chapel, the Capela de Santiaguiño.

It’s clearly modern. As the Camino de Santiago grew in popularity during the Middle Ages, a primitive stone shrine was erected here to offer spiritual refuge to pilgrims at the peak of the climb. That original structure eventually fell into ruin over the centuries; the local neighborhood forestry guild completely rebuilt the modern stone chapel in 2003. The name Santiaguiño is the Galego diminutive for “Little Saint James,” which reflects a humble, approachable image of the saint as a fellow traveler rather than a distant warrior.

During the Roman Empire, this exact spot served as a bustling highway known as Vía XIX, and a surviving 2nd-century Roman milestone still stands just 300m away.

We passed another pop-up offering posh wax sellos in a variety of colours

but our experience of these is that they look lovely for a while, but very easily degrade as the credencial is opened, closed, stamped on and generally mishandled. So we gave the opportunity a miss. We did not miss, though, a later chance for a sello, which Jane decided she did, after all, have room for – a stamp featuring the Roman milestone. I dropped a bit of Euro shrapnel into their piggy bank money box by way of a donativo, and we were both astonished when it burst into song….

 

And then, another opportunity presented itself….

and we stopped for more refreshment. Again, it was a popular place,

crowded when we arrived, but pretty quiet when we left – again, we were at the tail end of a pulse of peregrinos. As we carried on, all the work we put in to get to the top of the hill was rewarded with some great views towards Redondela.

(If you look closely, you can see an enormous viaduct crossing the city – more on this later.) Just past further encouragement

the road heads downhill, so steeply that Jane dealt with the gradient by traversing across it rather than heading straight down.

As a service to you, my beloved readers, I measured the gradient.

This makes it not quite as steep as Dunedin’s Baldwin Street, thought by many to be the world’s steepest street, which I measured at just over 20°. But pretty steep, nevertheless; and

a lot longer. Really, a lot.

The total descent is 140m vertical, and I am glad for two things about it: (a) that I didn’t have to walk up it; and (b) that my knees let me get all the way down without raising any objection.

Once down, there’s a longish stretch of road into Redondela.

If you look carefuly, you can see that viaduct running across the middle of the picture. The Camino diverts towards the historic centre of the town, past the 16th-century Justinian Convento de Vilavella,

a handsome albergue

with Pelegrin outside it

and along quiet streets.

We arrived at our accommodation, Apartamentos Alvear, too early to check in, so passed the time by going for a walk. Obviously. This took us towards the Santiago Church, which we caught sight of from a distance

before arriving at the church itself. That figure of St. James

shows him in his Matamoros persona, aiding the fight against the invading moorish hordes, and is on the top of the church roof.

Inside

there’s an imposing altar screen

with St. James in his pilgrim persona.

The rose window has some lovely stained glass

showing both cockleshells and the cross of St. James.

Having visited the church, we wanted to explore that viaduct – or, as it turns out, those viaducts; there are two of them, and Redondela is probably most famous as “the town of two viaducts”. They are both 19th century constructions carrying the railway lines across the city. If you look back at the photo of the town I took from the hills you can, in fact, just make out the second viaduct somewhat behind the first, rather more obvious, one. Walking towards them took us past the town hall, which is quite the edifice,

and a nicely-executed mural which sadly hides largely behind a tree,

but the two viaducts really dominate the skyline: northern;

and southern.

The weather today was lovely and it made for a great walk, which turned out to be nearly 18km. Tomorrow’s weather leaves a bit more to be desired – a non-trivial possibility of rain in the morning as we leave Redondela and thunderstorms as we approach Pontevedra, some 21km away. The breakfast arrangement for the apartments here involves a voucher for a nearby café, which opens early, so our current plan is to get under way betimes in the hope of minimising any weather damage. Stay tuned to see if we succeed!

 

 

 

Day 35 – Valença to O Porriño: Into the final 100km section

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Thursday 1 October 2026 – We woke up to a thick fog over everything. Over breakfast, the light was changing constantly and afforded a couple of atmospheric views, even though we couldn’t actually see across the river into Spain.

The forecast was for the day’s weather to be lovely for walking – no chance of rain and temperature in the low 20s, but the fog would make it pretty chilly. We had 20km to cover to get to O Porriño, and our check-in time was 4pm, so actually we were in no rush, and so could bid goodbye to our Pousada, and to Portugal, after a fairly leisurely breakfast. Our hotel had been a great place to stay – large, comfortable room, great location – but it was sort of symbolic of a lot of what we saw in Portugal – beautifully designed, well built and poorly maintained. I wondered if we would see a dramatic difference when we were in Spain.

To get to Spain, we had to cross the river. The Fortaleza is high on a hill so the first thing we had was a steep downhill walk, and going through the fortifications via an ominous-looking tunnel.

We walked into the dark of this, turned a couple of corners and still had to keep going before we emerged from the fortifications.

It really is a most impressively fortified place. Having worked our way through, we carried on down until we reached the level of the bridge across the Minho, which is another Eiffel creation, though with the emphasis more on functionality rather than elegance of design.

We crossed the river into Spain

and took one last look back across at the Fortaleza.

There were plenty of Camino cues as we started walking through Tui,

but we Jane particularly wanted to go down further, to the river bank where once the ferry would have deposited pilgrims for their ongoing journey; effectively the historic start to the Spanish final section of the Caminho Português. It’s well marked now.

The waymarks are very familiar to us from our previous Caminos across Galicia,

and many of them give a figure for the remaining distance to Santiago

which are, actually, just approximations, despite the apparent precision expressed in the figures.

Carrying on, we passed a mural full of Tui and Camino references

which all the other pilgrims just walked by without registering. As we walked towards the Cathedral which we’d seen from across the water, we noted that we were passing the remnants of fortifications on this side of the river which mirrored what we’d just left in Portugal.

After a surprisingly short climb, we reached Tui Cathedral, which is an imposing mass of masonry,

with an enormously intricate portal.

To our surprise, it was open and we could walk around inside; we’d been expecting a 10.45 opening time.

It turned out that the 10.45 time was for buying tickets to see the cloisters and gardens. Whilst we waited, we looked around at the various imposing constructions in the Cathedral.

A huge altar screen in a side chapel

A simply massive Aisle Monument, which seemed to stretch from floor to ceiling

 

A similarly massive organ, which also seemed to reach up to the ceiling

Intricate carving in the choir stalls

A chapel dedicated to Santiago Matamoros – the slayer of Moors

In the end, the chap on the desk couldn’t get his PC to start, and Jane noticed that one could walk into the cloisters anyway, so we did

and I took a quick peek at the view into the gardens and over the river.

In the end, as matey on the desk still hadn’t got his machine going, we took our leave through the massive Cathedral doors

and got on our way.  The route takes one past the Convent of the Clarisas – the Poor Clares, an order of nuns founded by St. Clare of Assisi, who entered a lifetime of devotion and rejection of earthly possessions.

Jane had read that there was a window where one could get biscuits made by the nuns. It was inside a hall beside the main convent.

One rings a bell, and the window swivels

(it can’t open, as the nuns may not be seen) so that one can put in a sum of money. When it swivels around again, there is a box of biscuits for you.

(Note to my followers who pick up on these things: this is not a picture of food; it’s our reward for a pious donation, OK?)

Further progress past the convent is through the Nuns’ Tunnel

after which one emerges on to normal roads.

Walking along, Jane notice this.

It’s interesting in that its salutation is still in Portuguese; also the figure represented is Pelegrin, the official mascot of the Camino de Santiago created for the 1993 Holy Year, something we’d seen when we walked the Francés and which Jane had remembered (but I hadn’t to no-one’s particular surprise).

Before long the road gave way to a track

and this took us past a chap sitting at a desk and offering sellos and bananas.

I think he must have paid Google some money because “Banana and Stamp” appears on Google Maps. He is part of a small business raising money to create a donation-based pilgrim hostel in Tui.

Further along the track is the medieval bridge of Louro

which has a kind of negative space pilgrim beside it.

We had reached the 5km “minimum qualifying distance” by this stage, and a kiosk appeared handily on the trail

so we stopped for a swift coffee before carrying on. Shortly after that, we reached the Cross of San Telmo, beside a small bridge.

In 1246 (or possibly 1251), San Telmo was on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
Upon reaching this bridge, he was suddenly struck by a severe, debilitating fever. Realizing he was too sick to finish the journey, he turned back towards Tui and died shortly thereafter.
Because of this, the bridge has been known ever since as the Bridge of Fevers.

The cross bears a solemn inscription for passing pilgrims, which translates as “Walker, here San Telmo became deathly ill. Ask him to speak to God on your behalf.” It’s kind of them to offer, but I’m still working out what message for him to pass on. San Telmo eventually became the patron saint of Tui, and his remains rest inside Tui Cathedral. Jane was intrigued as to whether San Telmo and St. Elmo were in some way related. Here’s what web searches tell us: The original Saint Elmo, traditional patron saint of sailors (giving his name to Saint Elmo’s fire) was Saint Erasmus of Formia, an early Christian bishop and martyr from the 4th century.
San Telmo was Peter Gonzáles, a 13th-century Spanish Dominican priest and missionary who became a patron of Spanish and Portuguese sailors and fishermen. Popular devotion eventually gave him the nickname “Telmo”, the distorted pronunciation of Saint Erasmus’s name, and the name San Telmo and Saint Elmo became interchangeable for both men and the places named after them.

The Ponte das Febres seems quite small.

It’s actually larger than it looks, being an entire semi-circular medieval construction  that has been submerged over the years by river water and silt.

Another couple of kilometres took us almost to the halfway point of the walk and a welcome and very enjoyable coffee stop at a place called Xarden. I had been wondering for the morning whether we’d be seeing crowds of pilgrims, and it was clear that many had gathered here.

We had our first piece of Santiago cake on this Camino; unsurprisingly, pastel de nata was not on offer any more, since we’re no longer in Portugal. It’s a pleasant garden, with an horreo (not an espigeuro, of course) surrounded by Belladonna Lilies

and some cute little sculptures, like this robin, throughout the garden.

The trail continues after Xarden, and leads past another entrepreneurial pop-up;

a lady who plays the bagpipes, and really rather well, too (if you like that kind of thing). She also offers a sello so Jane took one for a donativo and we walked on with, presumably Galician, folk dance music floating around us in the woodland as we went.

Her station was just by another old bridge, the Ponte Romana de Orbenlle.

Clicking on this on Google also tells you that this is the Ponte Medieval de Orbenlle. Apparently, it’s of medieval vintage, but sits on an old Roman road, hence the Romana name (and the current bridge may even have been built on old Roman foundations).

Soon after this, the track gives way to road, at a junction where there are some lovely murals on display. They are paintings by an artist called Xai Óscar, on the wall of his grandparents’ house.

The central one is a portrayal of the Gloria Portal of the Santiago Cathedral, the right-hand one a portrayal of St, James, and the left-hand one is simply called “The old pilgrim”. Again, we noted that the pilgrims that came past today marched on, paying no attention to this rather lovely art that was on display.

Bagpipe lady and a couple of other people had told us about a point in the Camino, shortly after these murals, where you have a choice of two tracks; the official one leads straight to O Porriño, and the other meanders around the countryside. The direct route (to the right) is shorter, but is basically through a series of industrial estates, so the recommendation is to take the complementario to the left,

so we did, and it’s a very pleasant alternative. It starts off as a woodland track, which leads over a polder bridge

and past another entrepreneurial lady, who offers fruit and juices to passing pilgrims for a donativo.

We had a couple of large slices of piel de sapo melon – very refreshing! Eventually the track turns to tarmac, a nice quiet road to walk along. We noticed that a lot of fences were made of slabs of stone,

and then we noticed a sodding great quarry in the distance,

and worked out (because we’re swift on the uptake) that the two things might be related. It turns out that one of the main industries of O Porriño is granite production; the variety of granite produced is known as Rosa Porriño (“Porriño Pink”), which is exported from the Port of Vigo mainly to Italy, Japan and China. Those bits that aren’t used for local fencing, that is.

After a few kilometres on the road, the track returns to woodland, running beside a river,

and taking walkers along a delightful trail, albeit one that is never far from heavy industry.

The trail debouches almost in the heart of the city,

and we had but a shortish walk to take us to our accommodation. The city seems a pleasant place.

It has a very impressive (granite) town hall,

a (granite) Town Name,

a big cockle shell (painted, so we can’t tell if it’s granite or not) to mark the Camino,

a very impressive (granite) rollo (pillory),

and an imposing (granite) parish church.

The church has some beautiful modern stained glass

and an intriguing statue.

It looks like St, James, doesn’t it? Pligrim attire, stick, gourd, the lot. Jane, however, was intrigued about the figure being portrayed holding up his robe to show an injured knee. Further research revealed that the statue is actually Saint Roch (San Roque), not Saint James (Santiago). The similarity in attire is because both saints are deeply tied to medieval travel. But the marking on San Roque’s leg is not a battle wound, but a bubonic plague sore (bubo). According to Catholic tradition, Saint Roch was a 14th-century French noble who gave up his wealth to care for plague victims in Italy until he contracted the disease himself. To show his patronage over plagues and contagious illnesses, his statues almost always depict him lifting his tunic to reveal the ulcerous sore on his thigh or knee. The clincher is the dog, apparently; St. James didn’t have one.

Our accommodation is an apartment in Apartamentos Tarela, which is very well stocked with essentials – and tomorrow’s breakfast – alongside (hurrah!) a washing machine because, y’know, these things are important. We did a bit of supplementary shopping to furnish ourselves with an evening meal but otherwise everything we needed was already here; and the owner even knocked on the door to make sure we were all set up, which was a delightful touch. It all made for a very satisfactory ending to what has been an excellent day.

Tomorrow’s destination is Redondela, about 16km away, but with some hills between us and it, which is not really something we’ve had to deal with up to now. Who knows, I might even have to get my poles out to help me up the steep bits….