Tag Archives: Walking

Camino Day 33 – O Cebreiro to Triacastela: Down, down

Wednesday 21 September 2023 – My fears about approaching rain were confirmed; it hurled it down and blew a gale all night, and when we went for breakfast this morning it was still pelting down and we had to splash through the puddles to the Hotel Cebreiro for our meal. This was dispensed with brisk efficiency by the lady manageress who’d been in charge for our lunch yesterday. She had, today as yesterday, her finger on the pulse of everything going on in the restaurant and made sure that it all ran smoothly. She really earns her crust, like so many of the people we’ve met who manage establishments catering for the pilgrim trade. Several places were run almost single-handedly by someone who has to work the bar, take restaurant orders and manage the reception. Our hat is off to them all.

As usual, the route summary and photos for today can be found in a Relive video.

As we set off on our 21km walk to Triacastela, I was not looking forward to what I thought would be a very wet day

but it wasn’t actually raining after all.

There was some confusion right at the start as we encountered two official Camino signposts pointing in different directions, neither of which corresponded to what the black line on our Google map suggested. We opted to trust the black line, but it soon led to a very suspect trail

which soon ran into grass. While I’m sure we could have followed it, I really didn’t fancy the prospect, equipped, as we were, with sandals and socks. You might question the widsdom of our footwear choice, but it’s not as daft as it might seem: we’d established, way back in the early days of our Camino, that walking with damp socks doesn’t cause any major issues; and, furthermore, we knew we were in for a major descent into Triacastela, and sandals are much our favoured choice for downhill work, as they remove any danger of mangling one’s toes against the front of a shoe. However, there’s a difference between damp and sodden; walking through wet grass seemed a poor idea, so we backtracked and restarted on one of the offical alternatives.

Someone commented, as we passed, that she thought our feet must have been cold, but they weren’t. It also reminded me that we’d offered some advice to a chap yesterday who had noticed our sandals and asked us about wearing them for walking the Camino trails (as opposed to when relaxing at the albergue or wherever one is staying). We had assured him that we highly recommended hiking in sandals but advised socks, as we thought that combination was a winner; I wonder if he was at this point testing out our recommendation and what he thought…

A little further on we came across the point at which the black line rejoined our actual track

and I felt that my reluctance to walk it had been justified.

The rain, remarkably, held off, and we even caught the occasional glimpse of the scenery as a shaft of sunlight broke through

but fundamentally, the weather was very gloomy and the view, when the clouds parted, quite dark.

The going underfoot was good;

so far I have been impressed with Galician Camino footpath maintenance as compared with other provinces we’ve walked through. And every so often, the clouds parted and showed us what we had by and large been unable to see.

We passed through Liñares

personfully resisting the urge to stop for coffee – we had, after all only walked 3km so far. The trail wound up, at times sufficiently steeply that I was tempted to unship my poles, and reached a hilltop, Alto de San Roque, at 1270m – not today’s highest point, as we’d hit that soon after setting out, but the point at which the overall trend of the path was now downwards. The Alto is marked by the statue of a wind-blown pilgrim

in a pose which matched ours at times. Soon, though we caught sight of the place for our first coffee stop; a village called

Hospital. Yes, really.

Suitably refreshed, we moved on in increasingly pleasant weather; the sunshine was nice, as it was a cold and windy day.

For the first time I was wearing both a fleece and a rainjacket against the chill; and I found gloves were necessary to stop my hands getting uncomfortably cold.

A further tribute to Galician Camino maintenance comes in the form of very much more frequent distance markers – it seemed that they cropped up about every half a kilometre.

Mind you, looking closely at them shows an unnervingly precise declaration of the remaining distance.

Our Brierley book comments that upgrades and changes to the course (as well, of course, as the various optional diversions on offer) render these more useful as encouragement than anything else.

We passed through the small village of Padornelo, which gave evidence that even stone-built dwellings can crumble

but seemed to have its own saint, as the church

is noted as Igrexa de San Xoán de Padornelo.

The Camino track closely followed the road for several kilometres

and leads past some modern-looking pallozas

to our next planned coffee stop, which was to be in a village called Fonfria. There were a couple of options shown on Google maps, one of which was a modern-looking building, an Alojamiento (lodging).

We approached it tentatively, as it wasn’t at all clear whether it was in the business of offering sustenance to passers-by. There were lights on and a single person sitting inside, but the door was open and so we asked after the possibility of coffee and were rewarded with a positive response. It was basically deserted, but we were rather pleasingly the trendsetters as a few others drifted in after a few moments and soon they were doing reasonable business. A group of lads sat outside for a while but then came in to eat their sandwiches, which made me a bit concerned as to what the weather was doing.

Rightly, as it turned out. It had started to rain as the clouds descended around us from the surrounding hills.

We got back under way, and the rain changed from the sort of wet mist that you get in every cloud into real, proper rain. Quite heavy rain.

The rain lasted for some 4km before we dropped down below the clouds and once again could actually see some scenery. And it was quite lovely.

There was actual warmth in the sun as we approached Fillobal,

a quiet village with a couple of surprises for the unwary passer-by (quite apart from the lamppost, which was somehow incongruous in this setting).

Above is, we think, an example of a traditional grain store, mounted on mushroom-shaped stilts to keep the rats out.

The path wound down, quite steeply in places

and with frequent reminders that this was cattle farming country. One had to be really quite careful in picking one’s way down the track, particularly in sandals and socks. However steep the path, though, the surface was almost entirely benign, as opposed to some of the other descents we’ve had to make as part of our Camino.

We passed through Pasantes, another quiet village

and approached Triacastela,

passing, as we did so, a Castaño Centenario, a 100-year-old chestnut tree, which was a very gnarly thing.

We reached Triacastela some five and a quarter hours after we’d set out

and made our way to our hotel, which is just after the church shown in the picture above. Our accommodation is the grandly-named Compliejo Xacobeo. It really is a little complex, consisting of an Albergue, a restaurant and a modern wing at the back, which houses our room. It’s all very well-organised, with laundry facilities, a restaurant that’s open all day and – this is something I’ve dearly missed for several days now – internet access of a decent speed.

We took lunch in the restaurant and went for a short wander around the village, picking, as we did so, one of the only times it rained. Although it’s not a big place, Triacastela has been an important calling place throughout the ages for pilgrims coming down from the mountains. It’s named after three castles which no longer exist and which may, indeed, have been destroyed by Viking invaders as long ago as the 10th century, before they were fought to a standstill. The church still bears, albeit faintly, a stencil of three castles in its tower,

below the status of St. James in the niche. There are other clues as to its status to be seen in its streets.

Down by the bus station (by the first of the two plaques above) there is a Camino monument

which was erected in 1965 to commemorate the tradition described in the Codex Calixtinus. According to it, the eleventh stage of the Way starts in Villafranca do Bierzo and ends in Triacastela, which “… is where pilgrims pick a stone and take it with them to Castañeda [further along the Camino from here] so as to make lime with it to be used at the building works of the Apostle basilica”. The stones could be picked up from any one of a number of sources along the way.

The village also has a rather charming dovecote,

and, erm, that’s it. We had Seen The Sights and could retreat to our hotel to relax for the rest of the day.

We have seven more walks to do in our Camino. Tomorrow’s will take us to Sarria. There is a “direct” route of about 16km (it still winds its way across country); there is also the option to travel via a place called Samos, where there is a sizeable monastery. Doing this increases the distance to about 25km and that is our plan A unless the weather is a complete disaster.

Our stats: today was 21.7km, according to Relive, so we have now walked 664.2km on the Camino – very nearly 413 miles. The descent to Triacastela was a major part of the day, but we climbed at first, too; our total ascent was 337m and descent 964m. Highest point was 1,376m and lowest 667m.

After Sarria, things start to get more serious and we can expect a great increase in the density of pilgrims (who’ve by and large been reasonably intelligent thus far). I’ll explain more once we reach Sarria, so please check back in soon to discover more.

Camino Day 32 – Ambasmestas to O Cebreiro: a big up to us

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Wednesday 20 September 2023 – We hadn’t too many kilometres to cover today (just the vertical metres in the ascent which I’ve already expatiated on), and the weather forecast showed no meteorological threats, so we didn’t feel the need to rush out. If you’re in a rush, you can view the usual summary of the route and the photos on the Relive video rather than enduring my commentary below.

We departed Ambasmestas at about 0830,

in cool weather with a lot of mist in the hills we were headed for. At first we walked on the road, which led gently upwards past allotments and other crops, such as this quince orchard

and the first village was Vega de Valcarce,

a town somewhat larger than Ambasmestas and with sophisticated touches of civilisation, such as a pharmacy and ATMs. We didn’t stop, but carried on along the road, which carried indications that conditions might not always be benign in these here parts.

Our first stop was at the next village, Las Herrerías,

where we had a quick coffee. Soon afterwards, the road steepened noticeably,

and the Camino route left the road for a track which was steep and stony,

sometimes muddy, and in many places covered in an inconvenient amount of horseshit.

Presumably the horses saw the gradient and crapped themselves. The amount of manure diminished as we ascended, I guess because more and more of the horses using this track were running on empty as they got higher.

We had a welcome break at the next village, La Faba, in a somewhat idiosyncratic albergue-cum-bar.

We pressed on, up the steep track

View up

View back

and passed our first palloza, a traditional style of construction

in this case used only for animals, but – as we shall see later – also built as combined dwellings for humans and shelter for animals.

As you’d expect from climbing up the side of a hill, the views were pretty respectable.

We soon crossed from the province of Castilla y León into Galicia.

and very shortly found ourselves at the outskirts of O Cebreiro, the name of which had been swirling around in my head to the chorus tune of the rugby song version of “John Brown’s Body”. The rugby song is “Oh, Sir Jasper, do not touch me”, sung to the tune of “Glory, glory hallelujah”, and I was getting “O Cebreiro” instead of “Oh, Sir Jasper”. Such is the intellectual level my mind achieves when faced with a steep uphill trek.

O Cebreiro is a sort of living museum

consisting of buildings in the traditional style, including some pallozas. Most of the palloza constructions, one of which was attached to our hotel,

are locked and shuttered, with no public access. One of them, though (top left in the above gallery) is set up as an exhibition space

with someone there to explain which was the space where the animals would live (now a handicraft exhibition area) and, where the kitchen was, and so forth. The leaflet accompanying this palloza describes the style as Celtic, which is a bit of a puzzle for me; yes, there are strong Celtic links in Galicia, but the nearest that Great Britain gets to palloza buildings are iron-age round houses.

An important building in O Cebreiro is the Sanctuary

where a daily mass is held, and outside which is a bust of one Don Elías Valiña Sampedro (1929-1989).

He was the pastor of O Cebreiro until his death and was almost single-handedly responsible for the revival of the Camino as a pilgrimage route, organising the clearing of parts of the route that had become impassable and instigating the system of yellow painted arrows that guide pilgrims at critical points along the way; an important man in the Camino world.

We had a very engaging lunch in the O Cebreiro restaurant, which involved tasting the local hooch

in the company of some boisterous Italians. Afterwards we found that the rather misty weather had improved to the point where I could use my drone to take some aerial pictures.

The Sanctuary

Today’s stats, then. I think Relive added some unnecessary wanderings in its recording, so I’m taking Jane’s MapMyRun figure of 14.3km as the distance we covered today, giving us a total of 642.5km – half a mile short of 400 miles in total. Garmin credits us with a total ascent of 817m, which includes some going up having gone down a bit; we started at 609m and finished at 1300m above sea level. My knee gave me no trouble at all, I’m glad to say.

The weather outlook tomorrow is rather uncertain. We’ll probably get wet at some stage. We also have to descend quite sharply, back down some 700m, as we head to Triacastela, about 21km away. Here’s hoping that the way down is less horrific than the ghastly Molinaseca approach we suffered a few days ago. I will, of course, report back, so please return to find out how it went.

Camino Day 31 – Villafranca to Ambasmestas: a mist opportunity

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Tuesday 19 September 2023 – The transit into Galicia is the third and final Big Climb of the Camino. Day 1 – crossing the Pyrenees – has the largest vertical ascent of 1428m. Days 27 and 28 between them take the weary pilgrim up 735m to the highest point on the Camino. We have in front of us tomorrow the prospect of quite a steep ascent to O Cebreiro. Today, the task was to get to ~~Asbestos~~ Ambasmestas (for some reason, this is the village name which has consistently given us the most difficulty in recalling it). As many people would say, absolutely enraging me in the process, there are two choices.

NO!

There is ONE choice, between TWO alternatives, OK? Is that clear?

So, a steady ascent, or a longer route with a hill in it (quite a big one, actually – check out the axes and the vertical totals)?

The Steve Walker of a year ago – or even two months ago, come to think of it – would have dismissed any suggestion of taking the right-hand route as coming from someone of unsound mind. The Steve Walker of today, however, gammy knee and all, was game for the hilly route.

That, mind you, is because the Steve Walker of today has been unable, despite 30 days of practice, to translate from graphs such as the above to an accurate understanding of what’s involved.

You can get the usual summary of route and photos from this Relive video.

We set off at 0830 into a cool, clear morning, bidding farewell to Villafranca as we crossed the medieval bridge.

At the decision point between the routes my attention was distracted by having to avoid a couple of cyclists and before I knew properly what I was doing, I was toiling up a path that was much, much steeper than I had thought it would be.

The view up

The view down

I paused to take a valedictory photo of the view across Villafranca

and to unship my walking poles, unused for over two weeks since we exited Castrojeriz on September 3, just a couple of days after we left Burgos. They made the rest of the ascent a great deal easier, and it was actually quite gratifying to note that both of us were still capable of managing a pretty stiff climb without actually finding it unpleasant.

To start with, there was quite a lot in common with our Day 1 climb

but as we ground our way up the hill we gradually emerged from the mist because we rose above the clouds. This gave us another wonderful set of views.

The path eventually levelled out

and entered a landscape of chestnut trees

which went on for some considerable distance

including departing from this optional trail and striking out along a faintly-discernable track between the trees.

Eventually, and inevitably, we reached and passed the highest point and had to make our way down.

The path down was, if anything, steeper than the ascent, and was quite demanding, but nowhere near as unpleasant as the hideously rocky drop into Molinaseca that had made my knee question my fitness for this whole thing; indeed I was glad to note that my knee seemed able to cope with both today’s ascent and descent. There were decent descent views to distract me.

The one thing that this route option didn’t have was any chance of a refreshment stop whilst on the hill. So it was nice to come into range of Trabadelo

which offered many possibles for a coffee. This being Spain and the time by this stage being nearly midday, of course most of them were closed. But we wandered determinedly about until we found the municipal albergue which also featured an open bar, and got ourselves outside juice (Jane) and beer (me) and crisps (both of us).

By this stage we had joined the other route option, which was a long and steady, but gentle, climb. (Incidentally, a friend of ours who walked the Camino last year and who took the road route out of Villafranca, commented that it was really dull, which merely increases my smug satisfaction at our route choice. Sorry, Karin!)

You’ll have noted the motorway in pictures above; the path took us underneath it,

and basically followed the river Valcarce upstream beside the road that the motorway had largely rendered redundant and which was therefore pleasantly quiet.

I’d hate to meet the spider that wove this web

We passed motorway services

on the way into the village of Portela, which, although it had its crumbly bits

was in surprisingly good shape.

It featured one mystery vignette,

as well as a rather charming Ermita With No Name

and a restaurant engagingly called “Rock and Roll Pizza”.

From there it was a short and pleasant walk

to ~~Abstemious~~ Ambasmestas

which is somewhat overshadowed by the passing A6

which is the motorway taking traffic from Castilla y León into Galicia.

And Galicia is our target tomorrow, via O Cebreiro, which looks like being a stiff climb of about half as much again as we ascended today.

The consolation is that there are three villages along the route and the profound hope is that the potential business model, of hordes of pilgrims looking for a rest and refreshment stop, will encourage at least one establishment to be open in each place. If not, then I think we’ll still have proved to ourselves that we can do the climb; but it would be nice to arrive in the least grumpy frame of mind possible.

Today’s stats. We ascended a total of 620m in a distance of 17.8km (there was some extra as we searched for ~~beer~~ refreshments). So we have now covered a total of 628.2km, a smidge over 390 miles.

The forecast for tomorrow seems currently not to involve rain, but I think it’ll be quite cool at the top, maybe 15°C, with something of a breeze. We’ll be spending the night at O Cebreiro in some interesting-looking accommodation. If weather permits, I hope to be able to get the drone up to take some aerial photos. If you return to these pages, you’ll find out whether I was successful or not.