Tag Archives: Camino de Santiago

Camino Day 38 – Melide to Arzúa: Just another pleasant day

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Tuesday 26 September 2023 – Our Cunning Plan for a somewhat later start was, in the end, a sound one, but got off to an unimpressive start. We were assured that Jacotrans, the company which has so effectively and accurately transferred our suitcases from place to place ahead of us, wouldn’t collect until 9am, as opposed to the 8am deadline which other places (and Jacotrans themselves) have specified. So we rose later than usual, but still in time to get our bags down to the hotel lobby at about 8.30. Just in case.

Trouble was, it seemed every other bugger in the hotel decided to take breakfast at the same time. The hotel’s breakfast room is small and was absolutely jammed, making it difficult for punters to navigate the buffet and for staff to keep the buffet properly stocked. It was chaotic and not very satisfactory.

Afterwards, I went out in search of an ATM to replenish our supplies of cash. Conveniently, there was one next door and I returned – triumphant with both cash and the card – at 9am, to see (a) our bags being taken away by a chap with a van and (b) a quiet and peaceful breakfast room.

Ah, well…

As usual, if you’d like to see the summary of the route and pictures, you can watch the Relive video.

The way that WalkTheCamino.com has booked our accommodation is actually, according to our friend who walked the Camino last year and who therefore Knows These Things, a fairly standard tactic among Camino walkers to avoid post-Sarria crowds. An author, John Brierley, sadly recently deceased, has written many books about all the Caminos; his detailed description of the Camino Francés breaks it into 33 chunks, the “Brierley Stages”, which many people use as their guide to planning their daily walks and destinations. The result is that every day, waves of pilgrims start out from each of the start points of the Brierley Stages and, equally, arrive at the destinations in waves. This makes for “pulses” of pilgrims along the way and, apparently, can make booking accommodation more difficult due to the popularity of these particular destinations – particularly from Sarria onwards. Neither Lestedo nor Melide are end points of Brierley stages, and this is the main reason that our journeys yesterday and today were so relatively quiet. Our Cunning Plan of leaving a bit later? Probably irrelevant, actually, in comparison to our location.

Another consequence of the “Brierley Stages” is, of course, the “Camino Family” idea. If certain places are popular to stay overnight and people start out at around the same time each day, then one is almost bound to encounter and re-encounter familiar faces over the days; we’ve certainly seen evidence of this. While we haven’t forged any major conversational bonds since we last saw Lara, there are certain familiar faces as we go along and we do the Very British smile and nod thing to show we recognise them.

The Brierley Stages and the Camino’s own 100km rule also combine in a less positive way. Before Sarria, encountering fellow pilgrims was a relatively rare event, and so the various greetings and wishing of “Buen Camino!” were, it seemed, a reflection of genuine fellow feeling and friendliness. After Sarria, not so much. The number of people on the route means that the “Buen Camino” greeting is used so frequently that I think people do it from a sense of duty, rather than because they genuinely give a toss about the other people. I have certainly practically given up using it, but Jane heroically and stoically takes on “Buen Camino!” duty for the pair of us and I am grateful for that.

It’s similar to our experience walking in England. Out in the country, it’s relatively uncommon to encounter other walkers and the exchange of greetings tends to be cordial, unless they’ve unleashed their dog on you or some such. However, when walking in towns, where there are so many more people, it’s much rarer to be acknowledged by others as you pass.

Whatever, we started out at about 0930 in misty conditions, with relatively few pilgrims about.

We didn’t have the same long periods by ourselves as we luxuriated in yesterday, and it wasn’t long before we caught up with a wave of pilgrims.

However, we were never really bothered by the numbers of people around us, and quite often had the trail almost to ourselves.

All in all, it was a pleasant day’s walk amid the pleasant, familiar but unremarkable Galicia farmland scenery. There were a couple of fairly steep ascents which, gratifyingly, we found were not at all difficult, and, once the mist

had cleared there were some nice scenes along the way.

Pleasant and unremarkable the landscape may have been, but the walk was not without interest. We passed a few noteworthy vignettes: some mischievous graffiti;

the 50km distance marker;

a house with some nice models outside it;


Cunningly used for delivery of the post (left) and bread (right)

retail opportunities beyond simply bars and restaurants;

engaging decoration of houses;

and a (an?) hórreo which was open, displaying what it was being used to store.

Probably the most interesting thing we passed was early on in the walk – a lavadoiro: a public clothes washing place.

You can see that it’s well-organised, with a reservoir of water being refreshed and overflowing into a nearby stream, and a passage around it so people could gain access to the washing stones. We had seen mention of these in descriptions of previous villages and thought of them as relics of a bygone age; so we were amazed when a lady came up with a trug full of clothes and started drubbing away at them.

(She was quite happy to be photographed, by the way, just in case you wondered.)

Just over half-way along our journey, we passed the village of Castañeda,

which – you’ll remember, because you were paying attention, weren’t you? – was the place where pilgrims were enjoined to drop off the limestone they’d picked up in the Triacastela area to be fired to make the lime used in the building of the Santiago Cathedral.

The final village on our route was Ribadiso,

proud owner of a medieval bridge

and an interesting back story.

The Ribadiso da Ponte Hospital, or Santo Antón de Ribadiso Hospital, was built here, beside the bridge, to receive and serve pilgrims, and run by the Franciscan monks before passing into the ownership of Santiago ‘s brotherhood of silversmiths, known as St Eligius. In 1523, the Brotherhood rented the house to Rodrigo Sanchez de Boado, a native of nearby Rendal, for one half silver real a year, with the condition that he keep the buildings in good condition. There are other historical references to the hospital buildings and they were all restored by the Xunta de Galicia in 1992-1993 for use as a pilgrim hostel.

At a guess, this is why Ribadiso is the destination of one of the Brierley stages, but our journey took us on a couple of kilometres further, to the town of Arzúa. The town itself is not particularly prepossessing

but it does have one of the Estrella Holy Year posters

and a few other cute corners.

It also has the very lovely 1930 Boutique Hotel,

which we were lucky enough to be staying in – another excellent choice by the crew at WalkTheCamino.com. It’s delightful inside

and out

with very charming hosts, Adrian and Andrea, who, apart from welcoming us very, erm, welcomingly, mentioned that they also owned a nearby restaurant, Casa Nené, which was still open for lunch!

After a quick refresh in our room, we hied ourselves thither and had a Nice Lunch, which was a pleasant appendix to a pleasant walk.

Our stats for the day: we covered a modest 14.6km, and so now our total distance stands at 769.3km, or 478 miles. Given that the official mileage of the Camino Francés is 480 miles, one is permitted to wonder why our actual is going to exceed the official version. We have taken a few diversionary routes – still official Camino trails but maybe not the exact ones that give this official figure. We should hit the 500 mile mark a couple of miles outside Santiago, which is an invigorating thought.

However, let’s not celebrate until we actually achieve, eh? We still have two stages to go. Tomorrow takes us about 20km to Arca, which is actually one of the Brierley Stage destinations, implying that our last day, Thursday, will be spent elbowing our way through mobs of pilgrims all, erm, hell-bent on reaching Santiago for the prized Compostela. The tension mounts (yes, it does), so tune in again a couple more times to this channel to witness the exciting denouement!

Camino Day 36 – Portomarin to Lestedo: Up and down

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Sunday 24 September 2023 – Even if I was going to feel outraged at the crowds on the piste, at least the weather outlook was OK for today’s walk. We shared a breakfast table and pleasant conversation with two American ladies, sisters from Washington State, before girding our loins and heading out into the throng at a few minutes past eight. You can see the Relive summary of the day here.

The weather gods did their best to protect us from the mob by shrouding everything in fog. We also discovered that the bit of the church that loomed over our hotel’s courtyard had its very own stork’s nest.

Our route took us out of Portomarin via The Other Bridge

(the upper one in the photo, as the lower one appears not to be in use any more, but serves very nicely as a creator of abstract lines for photography purposes) and headed steeply uphill

to get out of town and on the way to today’s destination, which was not actually Lestedo itself, but a tiny hamlet just past it called Os Valos. This appears, from Google Maps, to feature just one establishment capable of providing food, Hosteria Calixtino; our profound hope was that there was a bed for us, too.

The mist was slow to thin, and gradually revealed the expected throngs of peregrinos

including some on bicycles

whom we’ve occasionally seen referred to, rather charmingly, as “bicigrinos”.

Our hearts leapt at one stage when our Google Maps Black Line led us straight on when the hordes swung left; were we to have some quality time in a degree of solitude? Alas, the answer

was “no”, as the stream just debouched ahead of us, having simply been diverted for a short while.

Happily, I felt a great deal less outraged at the presence of the assembled masses than I had yesterday – not difficult, this. I suppose it must simply be that my expectations were more in line with reality. Anyway, the weather was perfect for walking and as we climbed up, the view back into the mist was great.

We noted a lot more British accents among the pilgrims at this stage of the Camino; before Sarria we had hardly heard an English accent, but now there were several Brits taking part. One wonders what to take away from this: are the British too hard-working to be able to take the time off to do the whole thing; are they too poorly-paid to be able to afford it; or are they just lazy buggers?

The scenery was enjoyable to walk through, particularly in the perfect weather we had today. The scenery was in most cases unremarkable, being a continuation of the sights and smells of Galician farmland – careful footwork still occasionally neeeded as we picked our way along the paths.

We did pass a few notable scenes, though: some charming statuary outside a house here;

a traditionally built, slate-roofed building there;

and, as we hit the heights, some nice landscapes.

In the final picture above, we saw a fresh plantation of eucalyptus trees; we saw plenty on the day’s walk, and wondered what purpose these fulfilled. Apparently, the tree was introduced privately in the mid 1900s and subsequently supported by the government as a fast-growing source of timber (e.g. fpr pulp) that deals well with fires; there are worries now that it is spreading and displacing native trees.

The landscape photos above were captured from atop one of the principal Interesting Sights, or even Sites, of the day; an Iron-Age fort called Castro de Castromaior. This was inhabited between the 4th century BC and 1st century AD, and parts have been excavated to show where the buildings originally stood.

Surrounding it is a very obvious ditch and wall

and in the centre is something that might once have been the basis of a tower.  The site is one of the most important archaeological sites in the north west of the Iberian peninsula. The recent excavations have discovered up to three different occupations, the last one being the fortified site, around the beginning of the Roman conquest.

The site is well-signposted, with the distinctive pink signs used in Spain to indicate a site of special interest. However, the hordes of pilgrims just walked past, paying it no attention at all.

Immediately after moving on from the site, we came across a scene that at first looked sinister or worrying – a Guardia Civil van, patrol car and several uniformed officers, surrounded by a crowd of pilgrims.  However, the truth was much less alarming and much more charming – they were stamping pilgrim Credenciales – including ours!

We passed through Ligonde

where there is a building that was once a pilgrim hospital and, a bit further on, a field which was once a pilgrim cemetery

for the times the hospital care wasn’t sufficient, I suppose. And the final village was Portos with a beer stop

named “A Paso de Formiga” – the path of the ants.

A beer was necessary whilst we pondered a significant decision: should we take a diversion off the path to see the church at Vilar de Donas, particularly to look at the 15th-century Gothic frescoes inside it? We’d already covered 21km by this time; did we want to do an extra five – 2.5km to the church and back? The available information about its opening times was conflicting, but we passed a sign to it on the road

with a notice next to it telling us that from Wednesdays to Sundays it was open from midday to 6pm.  So off we went.

The journey to the church was not without interest.  We saw today’s Mystery Object

and would be grateful for any kind of steer as to what the actual heck this is; and an intermediate village even had its own (small) horse racing track!

We got to the church

and inspected its admittedly impressive and artistically significant door

but the fucker was locked. Thrashing seven bells out of its centuries-old, original Romanesque door knocker produced no action, and neither did phoning the number on the adjoining noticeboard (which also contained a duplicate of the note advising us that the church bloody well ought to be open) although Jane did leave a message expressing our annoyance and disappointment.

Sigh.

We wended our way back to the Camino route and completed our journey to our hosteria just in time to miss the lunch service, as we’d been set back over an hour by our abortive diversion. So there was nothing for it but to rest up until we could take an early dinner.

It was a nice dinner, rather than a Nice Dinner, and the service was dispensed with considerable style and élan by a Spanish lad called, of all things, Nelson. After that, all we had to do was to plan for the morrow.

Before that, though, today’s stats.  because of our diversion, today’s walk was, I’m pretty sure, the longest so far;  Relive tells us that we covered 27.3km today, of which around 5 were the fruitless diversion to Vilar de Donas. We therefore have now walked 735.7km on the Camino – 457 miles. We also climbed 603m in total, so got a decent workout as we walked.

Tomorrow, we head for Melide, a shorter walk of around 19km, with less ascent and more descent. The weather forecast is for more great walking weather and I seem to be more at peace with dealing with the masses out there. Tune in shortly to see whether my termperament holds….

 

Camino Day 35 – Sarria to Portomarin: Surrounded By The Madding Crowd

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Saturday 23 September 2023 – Today was a trying day. I shall be moaning a lot about it in this post. If you’d prefer to avoid my self-pitying querulousness, you can simply see the summary video on Relive.

The weather forecast for today was fine – sunny and not too hot. The only worry on my mind was how crowded would the trail be. To remind you, Sarria is significant because it’s just over the 100km away from Santiago needed to qualify for a Certificate or Compostela when arriving there. Therefore, a lot of people start their Camino in Sarria.

On turning the first corner, the situation became clear

and my heart sank. For five weeks, Jane and I have been walking effectively in solitude and we were suddenly confronted with what seemed like masses of people. Of course, it wasn’t a crowd, but the sharp contrast with not only the walking we’ve done in Spain, but actually all the walking we have done, in England and elsewhere, made me feel very uncomfortable. Yes, of course these people have a perfect right to be there; of course I’m being unreasonable. But I hated it. All day. I even found myself at a couple of points thinking, “Well, I’ve proved I can do the hills; I’ve proved I can do the miles, why should I put up with this? Why not just grab a taxi and spend a few extra, relaxing days in Santiago?”

Annoyingly, it even affected my photography. Over the last weeks, I have taken a measure of care over the photos I’ve taken, spending time composing the image and capturing it as best I can on a (top notch) mobile phone. This takes time, perhaps as much as 30 seconds. In that time, the people that I’ve overtaken would have passed me, and so I would have to suffer the Very British Problem of feeling embarrassed when I overtake again. And again. And again, My defensive response was either not to bother taking photos at all, or just to grab a shot as I walked along and hope that it was OK. This doesn’t always work, as this one I tried to take of a chap opportunistically selling pilgrim sticks shows;

it’s blurred and badly framed. In others, there are people in the frame when I don’t want them there, or I’m not happy with the composition. The day was as trying photographically as it was emotionally.

There was scarcely an instant in the day when Jane and I had any feeling of being by ourselves.

In many respects, the day was a good one: the weather was perfect for walking; the going underfoot was very good; and the scenery was, at times, lovely.

We were passing through farmland, and so there were (scents to smell and) animals to see.

There were charming vignettes, such as this family weeding their land,

a new take on a pilgrim mural,

and attractive building decoration.

There were stops for coffee and beer.

There was uphill and down dale (much more, to be frank, than I expected, but it was nice to get the exercise). There were attractive corners of the many villages we passed through.

There were unusual objects, some familiar, such as this dovecote

and some less so: does anyone know what these are for?

We think they’re stores of some description, but if you know, please post a comment to educate us.

There was a very significant waymark,

although, as I’ve said earlier, its precision in specifying exactly 100km to the nearest metre as the remaining distance is bound to be inaccurate. I don’t care, and neither did all of the other people taking their photos and (sigh) selfies around it.

There were bridges, some very modest

some with a little more presence, albeit somewhat rough

and some really grand ones

which brings me to our destination, Portmeirion Portomarin.

Believe it or not, there was a steep descent to get down to that high bridge. Amazingly, there was a decision point on the trail beforehand

where everybody turned right, because turning left (on a more recently-crafted route) carried with it a warning that it was steep. Given how steep the “not-steep” route actually was, I can only imagine that the other route required pitons and ropes. Quite why it was put in place, I don’t know. Whatever, the route we took led you past a couple of great viewpoints to see the very impressive bridge across a river that has been widened by a dam somewhere downstream (which, incidentally, required the entire town of Portomarin to be relocated in the 1960s). Amazingly, people were walking past this viewpoint without even registering it, far less to take a photo or (shudder) a selfie. Why do all this walking and ignore what’s around you?

Anyhoo…

The bridge offers some great photo opportunities as you cross it

and when you get to the other side you are greeted by a significant flight of steps;

only 46 steps, actually, so not as bad as getting into Sarria, where there is a flight of 62 to keep your heart rate up.

Although there’s not a huge amount to see in Portomarin, it’s a handsome place

with a very large and historically significant church at its centre.

Portomarín was a town of great importance during the Middle Ages – appearing in the Codex Calixtinus – because Its bridge was a strategic crossing point, as it was the only place where it was possible to cross the fast-flowing Miño River without a boat. The church of San Nicolao, was actualy moved, stone by stone, from its original location when the river was widened. It is an unusual combination of a church and a fortress. This twofold purpose originated with the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, who built it between the late 12th century and the early 13th century to provide protection for pilgrims and traders.

Inside it’s plain, but otherwise fairly churchy.

At each end there is a modern stained glass window. The one you can see in the photo above is fairly unique in that it has actually 13 segments (the norm is 12; sometimes you see 10 or 16). We have failed to find out why this is the case.

Inside the church are a couple of photos of Dom Sampedro

(you remember – the chap who is largely responsible for the reinvigoration of the Camino) and outside there are a couple of statues, including the obligatory one of St. James.

Our hotel is literally in the shadow of the church (well, after midday it is) and it has a kitchen with a fridge, a kettle and mugs, so we can make ourselves lashings of Twining’s finest Earl Grey tea.

And this brings my story of the day to an end. I would say I’m sorry for the moaning, but I’m not. I only hope that I can come to terms with the extra numbers of people on the trail. One friend suggests leaving late and walking slowly so that the hordes are largely dispersed; perhaps we’ll try that. In any case you’ll be agog to know the latest stats, won’t you? We covered exactly 23km today, which means that I don’t need recourse to a calculator to tell you that our total is now 713.4km. I do need one to tell you that this is just over 443 miles.

Tomorrow, our destination is Lestedo,, which is about 20km away. Once again, rain doesn’t figure anywhere in the Accuweather forecast; let’s hope that they get tomorrow as right as they got today, and I’ll bring you news of the day’s events, hopefully in a more positive tone, in due course. For now, hasta luego!