After Santiago, a few extra days were available...

Hello,  everyone.  We had a busy arrival day in Santiago,  getting our Compostelas, checking into our accommodation, and going down to the train station to get departure tickets. There we discovered that the people were not able to help us get the tickets. We were there too early,  and we needed to buy the tickets online or at the vending machine.

We went to the ticket vending machine, opened Monday, and discovered that the trains on Monday were sold out. Oops. Time to rework the plan. Switched to Tuesday and got early seats out. Went back to the accommodation and reserved an extra night. Sat down with cell phones on the wifi and fussed around with options until we decided on what to do with our days: Córdoba is very historic. So we got train tickets online from Madrid to Cordoba, reserved a few nights in Cordoba, and also reserved the pre-departure time in Madrid. (So we wouldn't be trying to run across the city from train station to catch the outgoing flight all at once.) Then we spent some decompression time in Santiago. 

On Tuesday we left to Madrid, took the metro across town to the other train station, and caught the train to Córdoba. This went smoothly--as long as you allow for buffer time it will work--and when we got to Córdoba we used our Spain phone Google maps to find our place.

This is dried tuna tapa. The garnish is almonds with a drizzle of olive oil. 

The other tapa we tried was gulas (baby eels, but actually imitation gulas made from fish) with garlic mayo on toast. These are the last 2 on the plate. 😉

Arzua to Pedrouzo and on to Santiago!

Hello, everyone.  This is another of the catch-up posts.

Arzua to Pedrouzo (O Pino) is about 20 km. We had great weather. 

Entering Pedrouzo

Pilgrims' Mass at Santa Eulalia de Arca

We stayed at Albergue Porta de Santiago,

 where we have stayed before. The laundry facilities are okay on washer, great on clotheslines. The upper bunks have ladders, of course, but these ones are much less uncomfortable to climb.

Rolling out before 7 today!

This little chapel is at the Monte de Goyo, the mountain of joy. It is said that, during the early centuries of the Santiago pilgrimage, when arriving pilgrims viewed the Cathedral in the distance from this height, they were overcome with joy to be actually arriving at their goal. From here, it's only 5 km (3 miles) to the Cathedral.

After going to the Pilgrims Reception Office and getting our Compostelas issued, we had a celebration lunch next to the Mercado. 

Palas de Rei to Melide and then Arzua

Hello, everyone.  We've been a bit tired the last few days and posts need to be caught up.

We left Palas de Rei at around 7 as usual. We weren't in any rush because we had decided to split the Palas de Rei to Arzua stage into two halves. Melide, the town that has become synonymous with Pulpo a Feira (Galician style octopus) falls in the middle of the stage. It gives us two short, almost restful, days.

The only picture I took of Melide apparently, the bridge going into town.

We enjoyed some octopus and a restful half day before leaving in the morning. 

Jurassic style kale plants. They cut individual leaves off and allow the plant to continue growing. 

When the route marking people want to propose options--not to say confuse people--they set up two markers  at the branching point. 

 

We got into Arzua in the early afternoon.  We slept at O Santo, the albergue with ice cream cone sales at their front window.

Portomarin to Palas de Rei

Hello, everyone. This was another day of mostly good weather--a few drops of mist, but not enough to put on our ponchos--and going over hills and through trees and fields. It's flower season still and we saw so many beautiful azalea and rhododendron shrubs in peoples' gardens.

These ants have been photographed before, as we're now walking stretches that are included in several routes, but this year they are black. There are more ants in the beer garden now, too. 

Cute potted plant arrangement made of wooden fencing.

We stayed at Casa Curro in Palas de Rei. This little pensión had the cutest room, with its cheerful red and white color scheme.

At the exit from town, an arrangement of the town symbol.

Sarria to Portomarin

Hello, everyone.  Yesterday's post didn't quite catch us up. Today's post will cover the next day. 

We left our barndominium in Sarria at our usual time, about 0700. The weather is no l9nger so cold that I need gloves in the morning, in fact it seems that spring is finally springing up for real.

In Galicia, the official route has kilometer distances to Santiago marked on the mojones. (A mojon is,an official marker, like the one in Bentsen park that is half of the border market, with the othar half being in Mexico and the actual border point being the center of the two.) If there are two routes, one will be "official " with distances and the other will be "complementario" and no distances are displayed. (In 2018, walking the Norte route, we elected to take the old route, paved, instead of the new, cool route, through a higher altitude meadow, and we spent the entire day with Complementario markers as we walked past houses. There weren't any bars or restaurants,  and we were pretty sure the new path had none either, but our path did have an impressive log to rest on at one point.) There was only one route out of Sarria, so picking the way was basically keeping an eye out for arrows, shells, and morons.

I thought the color contrast between the blooming broom shrubs and the green trees was pretty cool.

Galician cattle resting and probably chewing their cud.

There is one thing that wasn't photographed but maybe should have been. Just before Portomarin,  there was a split sign. One sign said "historic route" and pointed left. The other sign said something like "new route" and pointed right. I foolishly went with "historic" instead of asking the conveniently loitering road conservation guys about the choices. Should y'all find yourself in a similar situation,  ask the nice man hanging out there next to his work truck. The way we followed wend to a narrow, water-carved slot with slippery stones and very little room for a pole tip. Some people turned around to crawl backwards down the steep rock "stairs" which I was not able to do. I did make it down, using my hiking pole that was already out and grabbing the rocks at the side with the other hand. But it was really scary and so I think if there is a choice that isn't described in guide books, y'all should ask questions before deciding. 😉 A word to the wise and all that.

Triacastela to Sarria

Hello, everyone. As we approach the goal of our pilgrimage,  we join many of our fellow pilgrims in wanting to get it done. (Something about sleeping somewhere new every night, I think.) 

Triacastela is a smallish town, and the masses of pilgrims passing through there has affected the layout. Along the pilgrims' path there are eating places and sleeping places, and in the afternoon as the day's arrivals filter in, there are people hanging out at the outdoor tables watching for trail friends to come past.

The dog knows where to find a cool drink 

This old fountain still has benches around it. Pilgrims passing through use them to rest or to remove layers if the day is warm.

From Triacastela to Sarria there are 2 routes. We took the San Xil way.

We stayed in a barndominium in Sarria, a former barn that has been converted to a small pensión for travelers. Our room appeared to have been a dovecote in the past. The stone walls are about 2 feet thick and the original windows are about 10 inches square. (Now glassed in, of course. ) There was a modern window in our room and on a shelf below it was an electric heater.

As it's getting late, I will sign off now.

La Laguna to O Cebreiro, then Triacastela

Hello, everyone. We left La Laguna in the freshness (not to say "chill" at that altitude) of early morning. It's about a 5 kilometer (3 miles) walk to O Cebreiro. This mountain  top church was blessed with an Eucharistic miracle, some centuries back, when a layman's faith, and grace, scolded a disbelieving priest. The layman's, who was known in the area for his devotion, struggled through a horrid snowstorm and cold to make Mass. The priest asked why he would go through all this effort for, as the priest at that moment believed, a bit of bread and some wine. The host and the liquid in the chalice were promptly transformed into a more-obvious version of themselves, meat and blood. (For my non-Catholic readers, this is what the Church teaches about the Eucharist.) 

When we had passed through O Cebreiro in 2014, we forgot to visit the church to get a sello. This time we remembered. 

We also saw the tomb of Father Elias, the man who did so much or revive interest in and knowledge of the Camino de Santiago. This is the one who started painting the yellow arrows along the trails.

The is the only modern grave I have seen in a church. (Father Elias died a few years ago.) All of us pilgrims owe him a great debt.

After visiting O Cebreiro, we walked to Triacastela.  As this post is long, I will stop here.

Villafranco del Bierzo to La Laguna del Castillo

Hello, everyone.  This is a second post for the day as I want to get caught up.

We left Villafranco around 0700 as usual. There was some pretty path along the way, though what we mostly remember about the day is the continuous climbing. Very little of that climbing was given back. It just went up, up, up. We had a bite of breakfast around 9:30 or 10. The path kept on. We passed Hotel Valcarce, that is named after the river we must have crossed about 7 times. Those folks have a bar, a restaurant,  a hotel, bus and truck parking...it reminded us of Complejo Leo on the Via de la Plata. But we had eaten, visited facilities, and we're generally good, so we didn't go in.

We started climbing for real at about Las Herrerias, which at one time was an iron processing town. We had a small sip there and headed out. We passedca cutoff for La Faba, but we didn't go there as we had discovered that neither of the lodgings there have wifi. Actually in the event I considered how the whole place was probably tucked insight to the canyon walls and wondered to DH if the town even had cell service. Much less internet. (Memories of driving through the Missouri hollows and losing active calls with every dip in the road stay with me.) We headed on. Using the paved road that was also the bike route. After many turns and twists, and many stops for breath, we arrived at La Laguna. This is a tiny village with only one place to stay. We were lucky and they found room for two more heads to lie down on pillows. (Which after almost 29 km of climbing all day, I was extremely grateful for.) 

We're pretty much at the top now, expecting ridge walking tomorrow before beginning the great downhill walking.

Trabadelo was very involved in wood.

Here you see one of several log piles that were seasoning alongside the road.

Las Herrerias boundary sign

Artistic shale roof work

View from the road, just before La Laguna

Murias de Rechivaldo to Foncebadón

Hello, everyone.  Today, like yesterday,  was a more moderate walk. Strava clocked it as 23 km. It sounds so easy. The difference is, today was neither flat nor dry.

These progress markers have begun appearing. Murias at 4th one down is where we started today. El Ganso at the top was around midway. El Rabanal and Foncebadòn don't show on the marker.

For some reason there are giant teepees near the graveyard at El Ganso. Campground?

Wild bulbs in bloom beside the trail.

Strange, metallic beetle on the path, about the size of my thumbnail

Some of the wet, running path. This part was easy enough to pause for a photo. There were other parts with more stones, more water, and more mud. The way went mostly uphill today. I used my poles to keep balance while moving from spot to spot, and also to test the firmness of the surfaces.

Just before Foncebadòn, one last puddle to get around. (The blue-green blob up ahead is DH in his rain poncho.) The weather may have been wet, but it was warmer today. We actually took off layers of shirts and sweat shirts as we went. 

Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo

Hello, everyone.  There was no post yesterday because there was not enough wifi in the building to use it in the room.

We walked to Villafranca on a pleasant day, with dry weather for most of the day and sunshine for part of the day. On the way to Villafranca we found a little museum about the vines and wines of the Bierzo region. (Bierzo has an official origin system for wines, in which if the grape varieties, growing methods, and processing qualify the vintner can label his wines as Bierzo wines.) They had a number of pieces of equipment and other displays available for viewing. 

I guess this art piece is an old fashioned wine bottle?

Villafranca has the distinction of having a Pardon Door. There are only 2 on the Camino before Santiago. The idea was that people traveling to Santiago might fall ill en route and be unable to complete their trip to visit the shrine.(As in by becoming disabled or dying. Travel was a lot more difficult in the middle ages.) If they made it as far as a church with a Pardon Door, they could still obtain the graces they would have gotten in Santiago.

We spent the night in a former collegio, a school for older students rather like high school.

Our room had something I had never seen before: an electric toilet seat. We didn't try out its functions because the controller was labeled entirely in, I think, Japanese.

Foncebadón to Ponferrada

Hello, everyone. The several days long cold snap appears to be breaking in northern Spain. Afternoon temperatures today were warm enough for us to remove layers of gear. It was nice to see the sun again.

We got on the road a little bit after 7 today. We climbed a little more--Foncebadón is pretty much at the top of a mountain--and then did some ridge walking, oops, ridge wading to visit the famous Cruz de Ferro.

The remainder of the day was a lot of tough downhill walking on rocks while threading our way around extensive puddles on the trail. Around midday we passed through the last (or first) village in the Bierzo region and sampled some of their food. They had a meat empanada that was very nice.

This is some of the water that needed to be waded or stepped around.
This is the Cantabrian mountain area, when the sun was just getting up.