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!