Tag Archives: Tourism

Camino Finisterre Day 11: Dumbria to Mazaricos – revisiting earlier scenes

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Sunday 12 May 2024 – As we could have expected, breakfast at Casa A Pinchonas was very agreeable – mugs for the tea, good bread, some decent fruit, agreeable service, that sort of thing – and it was a nice coda to our stay at a very pleasant guest house. We were careful to get our bags out before 8am because we’d had a snotty note put on them yesterday, but no-one came to pick them up before we’d left for our day’s walking. Of course.

Anyhoo…

We had to go a few hundred metres to rejoin the Camino path, and it led us past a place which had a reminder about the terrible possibilities of being taken by the fearsome Vákner,

particularly as we were once again heading into the deep, dark woods.

We were apprehensive.  Yes, we were.

I had taken a look at the profile of today’s walk, and realised that the first section was a longish uphill pull. It didn’t however, appear to be as steep as some of our previous hills, so I had decided to eschew the use of my walking poles, partly to see whether I had the energy to cope and partly because having to carry the things afterwards is a bit of a nuisance. Yes, I could take the backpack off, fold the poles and store them, but it ruins the continuity.

The gradient of the path made that decision, frankly, marginal; but I made it through the day without needing the sticks.  There were stretches which I felt were a bit tough, but my Garmin activity monitor didn’t credit me with having to work any harder than previous days, and actually I felt that I had reasonable reserves of energy for the day’s walking. At one stage, later in the day, I found myself thoroughly enjoying the simple exercise of walking and reflected that the weather and my digestive ferment had made this trip feel somewhat disjointed, which, though inevitable, gave us the thought that the longer walks, such as the Francés, had merit because a couple of days off here and there represented, proportionately, a smaller disruption to the overall wosname.

So, we were going up.

and the weather, which had started cool, was improving, so the increasing altitude brought some nice views, as one might expect.

It also took us through the apparently inevitable Eucalyptus plantations and the occasional ravaged landscape caused by the extraction process.

Gorse and broom had taken over the landscape in places

and we wondered if these expanses once held Eucalyptus trees.

Jane, having spent the whole trip looking out for one, was delighted to spot wild orchids

which she thinks are Stately Marsh Orchids. I just thought how nice it was to be taken with something that, frankly, my eye had skittered over without noticing. If it weren’t for Jane’s observant eye and horticultural knowledge, I would have missed many of the plants we saw as we went along. Particularly in evidence on our walk today were foxgloves and white asphodels, which were doing their sparkler thing.

At this point, we had completed the Hospital – Finisterre – Muxia – Hospital loop and started  walking back along paths that we’d covered eight days earlier on our way out from Santiago.  There was our scenic ferrosilicon plant (made somewhat more scenic by a couple of foreground horses)

and the “parting of the ways” markers, as seen from the other direction.

As we carried on, I was struck by another point to muse, which is the difference between the scenery as you walk one way as opposed to what you see on the journey back.  Philosophically, at home when Going For A Walk I prefer to do a circular route, rather than simply going out-and-back. Jane holds that the view on the way back is always different from the way out, and our experience today definitely supports that view. (Mind you, the weather on the way out was, how shall I put it, shit, whereas today it was ideal for walking. The general views today were lovelier than under the lowering skies and/or pissing rain of eight days previously. Frankly, we’d never bothered to look around, and it was likely we couldn’t have made anything out anyway.)

We looked in at a coffee stop that we’d used on the way out, and it emphasised something else that we’d gradually begun noticing over the preceding kilometres: the pilgrim season had started to ramp up. I suppose it was because of our timing, and possibly the nice weather, but the place was really busy

to the point where it was actually a pleasure to get away from the hubbub and back to walking. But we noticed a considerable increase in the frequency of peregrinos (and bicigrinos) heading in the opposite direction to us.

We retraced our outbound steps with considerably greater pleasure than we had on the original journey.  The fields possibly had had life in them then, but we weren’t disposed to notice, whereas now it was nice to see a donkey

and to note the horns of the cows in the same field against the sky.

As in previous days, the cloud and cool gave way to warmth and sunshine,

although today’s wasn’t intense and the temperature remained pleasant for walking. The decent weather also allowed us to take a detour to something Jane had spotted on the way out but we decided that conditions were too grim to actually make it worth doing anything other than simply plodding grimly by. A few hundred metres off the path, Google tells us, is a Balancing Stone.  Our energy levels and the nice conditions made it seem worthwhile now to explore, and so off we went.  It was just as well that we had some extra energy, as it was quite a pull up, but the views were nice anyway.  At first, it wasn’t clear which stone Google was highlighting.  There was one candidate, for example,

which seemed pretty impressive, but I popped over and gave it a gentle push and

oops, it was gone*.  A bit further on was another

which also looked like it was balanced.  Jane wanted to try the nudge thing

but it was actually too high.

Of course, this was the Official Balancing Stone.

I took one look and thought, “wow, you should be able to get some great drone footage of this!”  Fortunately, I had the drone with me, so Jane possessed her soul in patience while I whizzed it up and…actually it looks best from ground level; I couldn’t find an angle with the drone that was worth using. Some minutes wasted, then, but an interesting experiment from my point of view.

You’ll remember, of course you will, that when we were on the outward part of this Camino it had been utterly pissing down with rain, which had been ceaseless for 36 hours in the area, centred around our overnight in Mazaricos (today’s destination). I had been astonished, as we walked, by the sheer volume of water gushing off the hillsides. This was how it looked then.

Today? Not so much.

I had been particularly taken with the surging current threatening to overwhelm a bridge on this path, the Puente Vao de Ripas. I have some comparative video:

Today, we just had the pleasure of scenery that we could actually appreciate, rather than scuttle past in the rain.

Our passing through Olveiroa enabled a couple of pleasant vignettes.  To get there, we crossed the river.

Having crossed it, we looked back

and were reminded of the scene which had greeted us on our outbound journey.

We stopped for beer at the delightful As Pias, where we’d stayed overnight on our way out, and then walked back towards Mazaricos, where once again we would be staying at Casa Jurjo. The direct route involves some fairly dull walking on the road, but there’s actually an alternative route for some of it, on a side track.  Eight days ago, such a route would probably have only been a serious proposition had one been in wellies; but today it seemed a good idea, and indeed it was.

On the road, we noticed, as before, an increased peregrino traffic

and so were glad to turn off onto the side track, which had its own marker posts.

It was just nice to get away from the road, but, as well as that, we saw a “modern” (1933) horreo;

evidence that the popularity of eucalyptus planting hasn’t disappeared;

some clear demarcations in ploughing and planting;

and – nicest of all – we heard a veritable cacophony of bee activity as they harvested from the trackside plants.

The side track debouched back on to the main road into Mazaricos, which looked a lot less drab in the sunshine than when we’d last seen it

and arrived at Casa Jurjo around 1430 to find that food would only be avilable at 7pm. Ah well.

I’m writing this in the bar. There’s football on the telly, and I wondered if it might be bloody Watford again (yellow strip, etc).

It’s not. But it might have been.**

We have reasonable weather outside at the moment.  Sadly, it would appear that the nice weather may come to an abrupt end tomorrow. What is it about Mazaricos and rain, eh? I’m not sure how we’ll deal with the morrow, but it will almost certainly involve waterproofs (both of us) and grumpiness (me).  Our target is Negreira, but we’re off the main Camino track here. The current plan is to take a lift to As Maroñas, whence it is but 21 (possibly soggy) kilometres to Negreira. When we attempted the journey on the way out, the weather defeated us and we completed the journey in a taxi and a state of sousedness. You’ll have to come back and find out how the return leg went.

 

 

* Of course I’m joking, but it shows what photographic trickery can be done with built-in image processing software on today’s tablets.

** On our first evening in Santiago (the one in Chile, that is), we were greeted by a Watford-Everton football match on the TV in the bar. This also happened on Canada some years later. We’re feeling slightly haunted by this. Watford (“The Hornets”: yellow strip) is my home town, not that I give a shit about football, but there are some workings of fate to which we mere mortals are clearly not privy.

Camino Finisterre Day 10: Quintáns to Dumbria – Just another day’s walking

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Friday 11 May 2024 – After yesterday’s auspicious return to the act of actual walking, I was a little concerned that the burger I ate yesterday evening might hurl my digestion back into the inferno and dampen (possibly literally) my propects of repeating the exercise today.  My fears went unrealised and so we were able to set out soon after 9am after, it has to be said, a rather meagre breakfast at La Plaza. No matter, the weather was cool and the prospects for rain were nil – a delightful combination for a 13km walk.

It was a misty morning as we left Quintáns,

and it continued to be misty and cool as we continued,

with the hint of rain in the air. Rain would have been very unwelcome, as I had, rather optimistically, packed all my waterproofs in the suitcase. But we had nothing more than a hint of moisture in the air, so my decision was vindicated – all of 200 grams weight saved!

The day’s walk was like many we had during our Camino Francés – very pleasant but with nothing that marked it out as exceptional – just this day, you know? But I was very happy to be out and walking, even if I had less energy for the uphill sections than I had yesterday; there were a couple of Steep Bits, for which I was very glad to have my poles.

So, what did we pass that was worthy of comment? Well, continuing evidence of Eucalyptus exploitation, of course. This patch had been logged, and the stumps very neatly plucked from the ground.

Among the young and teenaged Eucalyptus which bedevilled the landscape were some older specimens. This one was nicely bedecked by moss, which was trying its version of cultural integration.

We found a tiny pilgrim clinging grimly to a wall.

The countryside was attractive, if a bit shrouded in mist,

but walking conditions were great, so we didn’t mind. The village of A Grixa provided a few little vignettes: a lavadoiro

a high street cluttered with horreos;

and displaying some nice mural work.

The next village, Vilastose, provided some rabbits,

and a church, Iglesia de San Cibrán de Vilastose, whose cemetery had different markers to the ones we saw yesterday.

As we walked on, the skies began to clear and at last we had

a little sunshine – weak at first, but well-established soon after. It never became oppressively warm, just nice to be walking in.

As we approached a village called Trasufre, we passed an abandoned house

which was rather practically being used as the container for a bonfire.

(It really was that, and not an incipient wildfire – we saw the chap tending it.) Generally, we passed a lot of fields and patches of land that had been ploughed over, possibly ready for this year’s crops, but most were roughly turned over.  This one struck us as being the neatest bit of turning-over one could wish to see.

Trasufre itself had a high street just littered with horreos.

After Trasufre, we came to another Steep Bit

which again led through largely Eucalyptus plantations.

We emerged from the woods close to Dumbria, near which was our destination for the day.

In the town itself, there’s a school with a rather attractive fence around it,

and a town hall with some interesting figures outside.

The four figures each bear text telling the story of the different development stages of the area: indigenous/immigrant; megalithic (3,500 – 4000 BC), Castros (5th – 2nd century BC) and Romans; the Middle Ages, including the evolution of the Camino; and the 19th century onwards.

Just after that was a bar, and it was open. We only had a couple of kilometres to go, but then, Jane wanted an ice cream. So what were we to do but to take a break?

The remaining couple of kilometres offered us some very neat topiary

and a church, Iglesia de Santa Baia de Dumbría, which had its own pink signpost, so I suppose must have had some historic significance, although I haven’t been able to establish what.

I’d show you more, but there was a sodding great tent set up in front of it

which, from the sound of things some hours later, was to be the site of the town fiesta or some such; we’re currently a few hundred metres downwind of whatever’s going on, and it appears to involve loud music and a lot of shouting. So nice to see (hear!) the people enjoying themselves.

The church itself has some nice stonework on its façade,

and the square has some of those linked-pollarded trees we saw in Mazaricos.

On the home straight to our accommodation, we passed a very unusual sight – a new-build horreo.

This looks to be made from concrete, or some kind of composite – it has an almost 3D-printed  perfection about it. Note also that the end face is not a smooth surface, but has pillars with the face sunken behind them.  I’m not sure what the story is, here. It is illegal to destroy horreos in Galicia and many of them (particularly the ones not entirely made of stone) are in disrepair and crumbling; but what’s the idea behind creating a new one? Eh? Anwer me that, then.

Our final vignette before reaching our accommodation was a shepherd with his small flock of sheep.

He was walking around testing the ground – perhaps worried about damp patches and the possible consequence of foot rot for the sheep? Or searching for one which had been claimed by the marshes?

Very soon after, we arrived at Casa A Pinchona,

which, after slightly more minutes of standing in front of a stubbornly locked door than was entirely comfortable, proved to be an excellent guest house.  We had a nice, and satisfactorily late, lunch, accompanied by the very fine Vanagandr gin that we’d first encountered when we were in Santiago last Autumn.

So, here I am, sitting in a pleasant post-lunch haze and overlooking a sunlit and bucolic riverside scene, bringing you up to date on what has been an enjoyable day, even if it hasn’t taken the sum of human knowledge forward in any meaningful way. Tomorrow, our destination is Mazaricos, where we stayed on our outward journey. The complications of its not being actually on the Camino Finisterre path gives us some planning to do as to how to get there and how thence to return to the Camino; but the quickest and simplest route to it is about a 13km walk, so we’ll probably elect to do that. There are several options as to how we carry on from Mazaricos, and we’ll have to seee how we feel. On that note of uncertainty, I leave you; you’ll have to keep an eye on these pages in order to find out What Happened Next.

 

 

Camino Finisterre, Day 8: Lires to Muxía – Mainly Jane Again In Spain

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Thursday 9 May 2024 – I was feeling better than yesterday, but discretion, valour, you know?  So once again we formulated a plan whereby Jane would do the hard yards on foot while I would do the easy kilometres in a taxi.  The weather prospects for the day

seemed similar to yesterday’s, which made a prompt start desirable (for her, at any rate), and so she departed at about 8.30am, leaving me to skulk first in my room and then in the hotel bar, which, for some reason, features a counterintuitively massive meat fridge.

I skulked until it was time to catch a taxi (and, it must be said, see what fallout there might be from eating moderately for breakfast, something of a novelty for the last days. Spoiler alert: no fallout; phew!). As yesterday, I have nothing to add about the journey, so here’s Jane….

It was much cooler and lightly overcast when I started out, leaving Lires and heading off on woodland and farmland paths of varyingly good going…

There were some striking sights along the way

and much evidence of spring planting and preparation.

I walked for a while behind this interesting variation on a horse-drawn carriage…

I wondered if the farmer was taking her to be shod, as she didn’t appear to have shoes and he was positioning the tractor very carefully as he drove so that she could walk where possible on the grassy verge, and avoid areas of broken road surface. [Not shoddy treatment, then – Ed (temporary)]

The way was unremarkable in many ways, although there were some great photo opportunities…

until the steepish bit up to the high point of the walk on Monte Lourido.

What goes up must come down, and the views opened up all around as the way descended (with what appeared to be a forest fire in the distance).

There were abrupt changes in the quality of the surface –

not so much of a problem for me on foot, but a bit of a sharp intake of breath for these Italian bicigrinos!

At a spring on the outskirts of Muxía this chap was doing his keep fit exercises, before filling his water bottle and passing me on his way back into town.

The descent into the town skirts the beautiful Praia de Lourido, with the less then beautiful (IMHO) Costa da Morte Parador on the slopes above.

The town is not particularly noteworthy, although there are some interesting murals

and the harbour area is quite picturesque.

I reached our hotel before Steve wafted in, so was able to check in and await his arrival.

Ah – here he is now!

The taxi ride passed without incident, except the one which happened before it started.  At 1235, I asked the nice lady behind reception at the hotel to request a taxi to take me to Muxía, and she told me it would be there in 20 minutes.  Accordingly, at 1255, I was sitting outside the hotel, ready to depart, and a taxi rolled up.  He looked grumpy when I approached and said, in my best Englishman-abroad-attempt-at-communicating-with-the-locals, “Muxía?”  I was disconcerted when he simply replied “no” and walked off into the hotel.  I thought at first he was going to, as it were, pick me up inside the hotel, but actually he’d just rocked up for a coffee. I sat back down, somewhat disconsolately, wondering if there’d been a cock-up, when another taxi turned up, and it turned out to be mine. The journey proceeded at Spanish taxi pace, i.e. slightly faster than is (a) legal or (b) comfortable.

Once we were both safely ensconced at the Hotel a de loló, we could relax for a while before going out for lunch.  For a change, there was no worry about finding a meal, as María, on the front desk, had pointed us at a restaurant, A Marina, whose kitchen was open all day.  The room was one of those excellent, well-organised hotel rooms which are not expansive, but which are beautifully designed to have all that’s reasonably needed, all reasonably within reach.  That included a kettle! We were thus able to treat ourselves to a Nice Cup Of Tea. When we were in Finisterre, Jane had spotted some local Earl Grey,

so, in order to conserve our precious stocks of Twining’s finest, we tested out this “precious black tea” and found it to be satisfactorily restorative, giving us the energy to go to lunch. Then we went for a walk. Obviously. (It’s so nice to be able to type that, as today is the first day I’ve felt capable of walking with any degree of pleasure, dignity or pace since Monday.)

Lunch was also an opportunity to reintroduce my digestive system to proper food (OK, and gin), in an experiment which – so far, writing some hours later – seems to have been a success, or at least not a noisome failure.  Before we embarked on the walk, we picked up our Compostelae Muxiannae, our certificates for completing what, in our case, is Phase II of III.  And I suppose it’s somewhat cheating for me to claim a Compostela, since I didn’t actually walk the whole way.  So sue me.

Our objective for the walk was to go to the “0 km” post which marks the Muxía end of the Camino, by the sanctuary dedicated to the virgin.  As with Finisterre, we visited last Autumn, but by bus.  The site is quite impressive, as you’ll have noticed from the video I shot last year.

Last year we had approached the site from the coach park, which, obvs, is designed to show the whole area to its best advantage, and I was very taken with the charisma of the place, and left with the impression that it was somehow on a remote promontory.  This year, though, we just walked 10 minutes up the road from the town, and discovered that it isn’t.

You just walk up the road and there you are.  It’s still a lovely site, though.

On the way there we passed the Igrexa de Santa María de Muxía, which is the site of a yearly pilgrimage every September,

and, rather less spiritually, drying rails for conger eels,

which are arranged in a square, rather than the conger line I’d expect.

We spent a few minutes at the site reacquainting ourselves with its Camino-related aspects, but particularly, of course, the “0 km” marker, to show we’d completed this stage.

There are other decent views across the site, too,

including the “sail rock”, which was part of the stone boat supposedly sailed there by the virgin Mary to reassure St. James that his work was successfully completed.  The Camino is full of symbolics like this.

We walked back into town round the other side of the headland, past dry stone walling which we at first thought might have been the remains of ancient habitations

but, it soon turned out, were simply allotments.

One final conger eel rack

and we were back at the hotel, getting ourselves outside more of Sir Winston’s finest.

The morrow?  Too soon to be certain, but the omens are favourable; tonight will be the acid test, possibly in a literal manner, as to whether my digestion really was ready for that meal.  If it turns out that it was, I think I might be ready to rejoin Jane on the road as we walk the 10km or so to Quintáns. If she’ll have me, that is. It’s a short walk and, one hopes, not too arduous. The current forecast for the weather is (whisper it) good, with cooler temperatures but no rain. So, stay tuned and see how the day unfolds, OK?