Still on our Way

DAY 6: A Guarda to Oia (13KM) - 30 April

The weather is miserable today and our walk is quite short, so we decide to delay our departure in the hope that the weather improves as the day progresses. But rather than just hang around the hotel room, we decide to go in search of the tourist office. On top of the hill outside A Guarda, there is the 12th century hermitage of Santa Trega, and the even more interesting sounding archaeological site of the Castro de Santa Tecla, a 4th Century BC Celtic city. We wanted to catch a bus up there, but google couldn’t find one, so we thought the tourist office might be able to help. After winding our way through countless backstreets and up and down countless steps, with rain driving down all the while, we finally found the tourist office. Unfortunately, despite the opening hours on the door suggesting it was open, the shuttered windows, locks on the door and lack of human movement suggested otherwise. Beth generously decides that the officer in charge is busily engaged helping a tourist somewhere and will be back in the office soon. We should just wait a little while. Problem was that the rain was not really abating. Luckily there was a little cafe over the road and we sought shelter there. We drank coffee and waited. We ate pastries and waited. All the while with one eye on the tourist office door, which didn’t move a smidge. I think the officer in charge was home in bed. Why would anybody want tourist information on a day like this.

It was about now that I started losing enthusiasm for the Celtic village and I voted that we just abandon the Santa Tecla excursion and hole up somewhere dry and warm until the rain stopped. But before I could argue my case, a second motion was put and summarily accepted that we stop looking for a bus and catch a taxi up the mountain. Before I knew it, we were in a cab heading up to Santa Tecla. It turns out that there are no buses up the hill anyway. You either drive, walk or catch a taxi.

The weather sort of improved up the hill. The rain eased, but was replaced with heavy fog, so views were off the agenda. We had a look in the museum, which was quite intriguing, then made our way to the Celtic village a little way back down the hill via the hermitage. It all seemed a bit other worldly in the fog. I poked my soggy head into the hermitage chapel to have a bit of a look, and it was not enormously different to the many other chapels we had seen recently, except perhaps a bit darker and gloomier. As I was turning to leave, a voice came to me from behind the altar, “Você gostaria de um carimbo”. When I looked there was nobody there. Oh dear, thought I. I doubted that I had been singled out amongst pilgrims for a visitation, unless of course it was a warning to mend my wicked ways. I was about to turn and run when the ghostly voice again echoed through the chapel, this time in English. “Would you like a stamp” it said. Closer inspection revealed a little stamp station around the corner beside the altar, attended by a museum staff member. I tried to conceal my half embarrassed, half terrified expression as I collected my stamp. Then I turned and ran.

The Celtic city was really interesting. It consisted of the excavated remnants (basically the bases) of hundreds of stone huts, all pretty much circular, and all nestled against each other to resemble a slice of honeycomb, but with circles, not hexagons. Again, the gloomy conditions lent the whole scene quite a surreal atmosphere. It sounds trite, but looking out across this little city, you could not help but think about how the ordinary people here went about their business two and a half thousand years ago. The archaeological relics and the obvious design of the city suggest these folk were quite sophisticated and artistic.

So, we caught a taxi up here, but there wasn’t exactly a line of cabs eagerly waiting to take us back down again. It’s okay, says Beth, it’s only 5 or 6 kilometres, it’s not raining that much, and it’s all downhill, let’s walk. This smelt to me like a premeditated plan to make sure we kept up our 20km a day walking.

Although the weather remained threatening, our raincoats were only deployed a few times during the walk, and generally not for very long. For the first few days of this Camino we assiduously packed fruit and nuts for lunch each day and carried it with us and ate it along the way. We are still carrying fruit, but very sensibly in my opinion, have started breaking up our walks with stops at coffee shops along the way to rest, snack, drink coffee, and watch the world go by. Fruit is now used more as backup than primary food source.Today, as the weather starts to misbehave a little, we see a sign pointing up the hill to a cafe. We took the rain as a sign that a small detour is right and proper, and we must retire to the cafe for shelter and refreshment. Very nice little lunch.

The Atlantic Ocean is again our friend today and keeps us company pretty much the whole way to Oia. Oia is a lovely old, and very small village, and our hotel is a very old, but very nicely restored and decorated stone building in the very narrow and cobbled Main Street. The proprietress seemed really proud of her place, and took us over the main road to their back garden, which enjoyed a nice view of the sea. In the yard was a strange structure similar to many we had seen in back yards in both Portugal and Spain. This structure was a gable roofed building made of stone, about the size of a garden shed and elevated about five to ten feet off the ground on stone stumps. Generally with a cross or other religious symbol on one end of the gable and a simple finial on the other end. These buildings had us intrigued. We didn’t know whether they had a religious or purely functional purpose. So we asked the proprietress what the structure was. She told us that it was an “Oreo”, and the purpose it served was as a granary. Once I figured out that Oreo was actually Horreo, I did a bit of research and found that these buildings were historically where the household harvest was stored, and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It appears that there is a fair amount of pride in keeping these old garden sheds in good shape.

Our notes mentioned that Oia was a small town with a couple of options for dinner, but our proprietor, who spoke to us entirely through google translate, advised that the only restaurant in town was closed at the moment, but not to worry, they had an arrangement with a restaurant 3 kilometres up the road. A three kilometre walk to dinner did not sound like a great idea, but Ms Oia must have read our minds and before we could even emit an exasperated sigh, she informed us that she would organise a taxi at no cost to drop us off and bring us back after the meal. Turns out that she owned the taxi service (one vehicle) and I suspect the distant restaurant as well. It all worked like a well oiled machine and we were very happy to be fed.

DAY 7: Oia to Baiona (18KM) - 1 May

The walk from Oia to Baiona is one of the more interesting walks so far. Again a lot of walking close to the water, predominately rocky coast and cliffs today. Then we push inland and upward to cross a headland getting good views of a very picturesque lighthouse and the rocky cape, but most importantly, approaching the top of the hill, which was a pretty hard climb, we happened upon what was indisputably a Roman road. Huge ruts had been worn into the large, hard granite road base through constant cart traffic over 2,000 years. Pretty amazing.

Baiona is quite a large city, and clearly a very popular seaside resort town. Our hotel was on the other side of town and we seemed to be walking through suburbia forever. But that didn’t matter too much, because the beach scenery was very nice.

Once settled in our fairly tired looking hotel, we go for a bit of a wander for a couple of hours around the Baiona old town, the beach and the old fortifications on the peninsula at the end of the bay. A couple of particular points of interest were the moored replica of the Caravel La Pinta, one of the ships used by Christopher Columbus in his 15th century voyage of discovery, and the Parador Hotel, occupying a beautiful old palace within the walls of the fortified town. The Parador chain of hotels throughout Spain have beautifully renovated some amazing historic buildings and sympathetically converted them for use as five star hotels. This is of particular interest to us, because as a reward for completing the Camino, we have booked two nights at the Parador in Santiago de Compostela, so we were keen to have a little look at what we might expect. I think we did more walking in Baiona than we did on the trail today.

DAY 8: Baiona to Vigo (24KM) - 2 May

The sad old Bahia hotel in Baiona wins the prize for the most underwhelming breakfast to date. Breakfast is a pretty important meal for elite athletes such as us, and by and large the breakfasts to date have given us enough variety and substance to get us off to a good start for the day, but not so the Bahia. Oh well, just means we will have to supplement those shortcomings at cafes along the track.

Despite our undernourished state, we set off with plenty of energy on what is going to be another long day. There are maybe a couple of things giving us this energy. Today is C’s birthday (I won’t give away her age, except to say that she can now officially partake in the generous seniors discounts the rest of us have been enjoying this whole trip). To celebrate, S has booked a fancy restaurant for dinner, and just the thought of a good feed is an energy boost. Also, we know that we have a rest day in Vigo tomorrow (let’s see how Beth interprets rest), so that also gives us a bit of incentive to work hard today.

The walk out of Baiona across the beautiful medieval Ramallosa bridge and through the nicer suburbs is very pleasant. Quite a bit of variety in our walking today. Some beach side walking, some rugged coastal walking, some forests and of course, some hills. S sent us a text half way through the walk, warning us that Vigo was actually a big city, and he was right. Soon after his text we started to encounter industrialised suburbia, and we still had 10 km to go, which was all urban walking. It seemed to take forever, not helped by the patchy weather and the apparent need for us to climb to a great height so that we could descend down into our accommodation. It actually wasn’t so bad, it gave us a bit of variety, but it was good to get to our hotel and freshen up for our big night out.

The restaurant that S had booked was just over the road from our hotel, which our tired legs appreciated greatly. The meal was delightful, although I am still somewhat coming to grips with the seafood and chocolate fusion dish. I ate it, and I think I enjoyed it, but not sure I need to go there again. It was lovely to enjoy a night out with friends and good food.

DAY 9: Rest day in Vigo - 3 May

C & S have decided to hang around and discover more of the Vigo big smoke on their rest day, but Beth and I are quite excited about taking a bus ride out to Tui, which is a very old city with Roman roots located on the Portuguese central Camino. The weather has continued to challenge, and Vigo has thrown up a bit of an ugly day for us to rest in. But we find the bus stop and managed (with the help of lovely young lady who could decode the 17 digit bus number) to board without getting too wet. The bus route out of Vigo climbs high up into the hills behind the city and would normally offer spectacular views across the city port and out to the Vigo estuary. Not today though. As it did on Mount Tecla, views of Spain from on high have been protected from our gaze by fog. The bad weather stayed with us the whole 30 km or so out to Tui, which was ok, because apart from missing the views from behind Vigo, the rest of the trip was basically industrial or commercial.

First impressions of Tui were also a bit disappointing. It all seemed a bit tired and grubby around the bus station where we were dropped off. But once we made our way into the old town the disappointment quickly evaporated. There were ancient buildings to look at, lovely old steep and narrow laneways and plenty of churches of course. The weather remained gloomy, but somehow that made the whole experience even better. Tui cathedral, which was built in the 12th century really had us entranced. It’s size, it’s architecture, it’s cloisters, it’s lack of tourists, and the generally comfortable feel of the place made it the highlight of churches for me to date.

I read somewhere that an important thing to do whilst in Tui is to buy the traditional fish shaped biscuits that have been baked for centuries by the nuns from the Order of the poor Clares who have a monastery in Tui. Problem was that I could not find any guidance on how to actually source these biscuits. I looked in local pastelarias, but none were to be found. Eventually I found a post online that said you needed to visit the monastery, so off we went. We found the chapel attached to the monastery and wandered in. No biscuits in sight, but there was a nun hovering at the back of the church, surely this was the biscuit seller. I had read somewhere that these nuns had particular vows which insulated them from broader society. I could not remember, but I thought it was a vow of silence, so I figured that I had best not try to engage the nun in the chapel to find out about biscuits. But then what do you do? They have been selling these biscuits for years, there must be some protocol. Maybe best if we just sit down in one of the pews and allow the nun to call the shots. The nun was certainly keeping her vow of silence, but she showed no sign of enlightening us on the biscuit front either. She did however creep toward us ever so slowly, always with her eyes averted. After about ten minutes of this we decided it was all getting creepy, so we decided to forget the biscuits and left the chapel. No sooner had we left than we heard the door being locked and bolted behind us. I think the poor nun was just waiting for us to leave so she could lock up the chapel for lunch and she was just too polite to chuck us out.

Ok. So the chapel is not where the biscuits are kept, then where? At this point Beth was prepared to abandon the biscuits, but I was less inclined to leave empty handed. We walked a little further down the lane behind the monastery and found a small archway in the wall that led to a dark room which had a funny little window in its wall with an ancient rotating barrel type of affair in it and a grille above it which you could not see through. This is it, thought I. This is the place where the biscuit deals are done. But how does it work? I looked around and saw nothing. Just the window, the barrel and the grille, and over in a corner a light switch. After much agonising over what to do next, I decided to flick the switch and see what happened. Turns out it wasn’t really a switch, it was more of a button, and when I pressed it a buzzer sounded behind the wall and a dog barked loudly. Then there was some scuffling and rattling and a loud female voice dashed my vow of silence theory and boomed out through the grille something in Spanish, which I can only assume translated to WHAT DO YOU WANT!!! As I quaked in my boots, all I could do was emit a feeble, sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. To which the voice replied FISH?!!. Yes, please. TEN EUROS!!. The barrel swivelled squeakily into action and revealed a small €10 sized opening, into which I placed my money. The barrel squeaked again, the €10 magically disappeared and was replaced by a very commercial looking box of fish biscuits, which I snatched from the barrel and hastily made my exit. A very expensive box of biscuits, but €10 well spent nonetheless.

DAY 10: Vigo to Redondela (16KM) - 4 May

Part of the toolkit we were given to help navigate our way was an app which gave us a google type map with our route superimposed on it. Since setting off we have cursed this app, because it shows our route quite clearly, but doesn’t show where we are on the route. Surely this is the whole point of an app like this and clearly a terrible oversight by the developers. We had made a mental note to let our tour organiser know that we were not happy. It was eight days into our fourteen day walk before I thought maybe we might be missing something, and sure enough, a small configuration change and voila, we could see ourselves on the map. Oh well, at least we will have a few days of seeing where we are going, and we have been saved the embarrassment of complaining about something that wasn’t there.

Leaving Vigo we head out of town along the river and gradually climb to quite a height and despite the still gloomy conditions we enjoyed quite a good view back along the Vigo estuary to the port. As we progressed we saw what looked like square platforms floating on the estuary which seemed to proliferate the further we went. At one stage the river looked like a patchwork of these platforms. We were quite intrigued, so of course google was consulted. It seems that Vigo is a major centre for production of Galician mussels and oysters, and these tasty little morsels grow on ropes suspended from these platforms. Evidently watching the harvest is quite something, but none of that is happening today.

The walking was quite nice today. A bit of forest, a few hills, and then some little towns and backstreets as we approach Redondela. The weather was very raincoats on, raincoats off, but not too much of a pain and we managed to keep up quite an impressive pace. S had a bit of a torrid time with buses at Vigo, which meant that for once we beat him to our destination at Redondela.

Redondela was a nice little town. Nothing really grand, but a nice little canal running through town, some interesting old backstreets, and a couple of big old railway viaducts. If there is a viaduct for me to look at, then I am happy.

DAY 11: Redondela to Pontevedra (20KM) - 5 May

We have now merged with the more popular central Portuguese Camino, which means that the number of people on the track has significantly increased. It is now like a line of ants heading to Santiago de Compostela.

More rain today, but again not enough to slow our progress or dampen spirits. Quite a nice walk, particularly the medieval stone bridge over the River Verdugo at Arcade. Medieval stone bridges rank right up there with railway viaducts. Pontevedra is a very nice little city. A lovely old city to wander through, some nice squares and of course some nice churches. We visited the Our Lady of Pilgrims church which is somewhat emblematic of the whole pilgrim thing. It is built in the shape of a scallop shell, which is the symbol of the Camino, and the scallop shell motif figures prominently throughout. For the princely sum of €1 we also got to climb the stairs to the cupola which we could wander around. We also visited the chapel of the old Convent of San Francisco, which had some lovely stained glass. There is something about stained glass that just mesmerises. Lucky I have Beth with me to break me out of my mesmeric state and keep me moving. There is a lot of stained glass over here.

DAY 12: Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis (22KM) - 6 May

The little stone posts guiding us to Santiago de Compostela, particularly in Spain, have an arrow pointing the way and the number of metres to our destination. When that number was 200,000 odd we chose largely to ignore it, but now that we have dropped a digit and are less than 100km to go, we carefully watch this number and celebrate the little milestones (or metre stones in this case). I think that means we are in the home stretch, and of course as soon as you sense the finish is close you find some energy reserves you didn’t know you had. So we are really scooting along now towards that comfortable 5 star bed in the Parador at Santiago de Compostela.

Nothing too notable in our walk today, mostly small towns, backstreets and small vineyards. Caldas de Reis is one of those very pleasant small towns. It is built on a thermal spring and there is a spa in the town square where you can dip your weary feet into the lovely warm spring water. Our resting place today is a family run boarding house on the outskirts of town. It was a lovely, really well equipped place which gave us the opportunity to put together an al fresco feast to enjoy in the garden beside the pool whilst we watched the entertainment. The quite large garden had a big patch of grass which was being maintained by a robot lawn mower. It is amazing how much time can be spent watching the to-ings and fro-ings of a mower and second guessing its decision making processes. S was willing the machine to make an error of judgement and plunge headlong into the pool, but although it looked on-track to do so several times, it always changed course just in time leaving S greatly disappointed. Whilst we were alternating between eating and mower spectating, an older gentleman wandered out into the garden. He saw me admiring a small loquat tree, and came over to advise me where to get the best fruit, they are the ones just out of reach evidently. We had a lovely conversation for about ten minutes about loquats, climbing trees, cycling and walking. His son, who was the proprietor of this lovely little establishment was a very accomplished cyclist it seems, and he competed at the world championships in the 1990’s. At least I think that is how the conversation went. You see, his part of the conversation was entirely in Spanish, and mine entirely in English. Who cares really what was said, we had a lovely chat about nothing in particular, which is not really that unusual.

What the old man did do though, was to embolden me to pick and eat some of the loquats. Like the orange trees in Portugal, loquat trees in Spain heavy laden with just out of reach fruit have been tempting me for some time. I love loquats. My grandmother had a loquat tree, which I can remember as a child climbing, sitting in the crook and gorging myself on the fruit. C remembers a similar tree in her childhood, but whilst I remember my overindulgence fondly, she remembers hers, quite rightly, as just an overindulgence, which put her off these lovely morsels in later years.

DAY 13: Caldas de Reis to Padrón (19KM) - 7 May

Penultimate day of walking, and just a short stroll at 19km. Our destination today is Padron, which is a very important little city in this whole Camino thing, because it is here that the boat carrying the body of St James is said to have landed way back in the first century.

We are now walking almost entirely through farms, vineyards and small towns, which is quite nice, particularly when we leave the busy roads and wind our way through the narrow streets of small towns or along pedestrian paths between farms. Along the way we pass through the industrial town of Pontecesure on the River Ulla. Smokestacks, shabby factory buildings, potholed roads and a general down at heel feel about the place. Even the historic 1st Century stone bridge looked its age. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but be attracted by the shabbiness. I found myself singing the old Pogues standard, “Dirty old town”. Beth suggested that it was probably not good form to be calling this a dirty old town, and there was a likelihood if I continued to do so, of getting thumped by an offended local. I wanted to explain that Dirty old Town is an ode to ugly industrial towns, and recognised that ugliness is the essence of their beauty and if you look beyond the grim facade you will find a heart and soul as pure as the driven snow. Singing this is a celebration of the town, not a criticism. Wasn’t sure how I was going to say that to an offended Pontecesurian though. I stopped singing and hummed instead.

Padron is famous as the destination for St James stone boat, but it is also famous for little deep fried green capsicums, which are called (not surprisingly) Padron Peppers. These simple little treats are a particular favourite of C, and at every opportunity at the Tapas bars and Cafes along the way, we have indulged in a dish of Pimientos de Padron. C insists that in every plate full of these little fellows, there is one pepper that packs a big punch. Thus far we have not found a punchy pepper. But here we are in Padron. Surely here is the place for genuine Padron peppers, one of which brings sweat to the brow. Given that we have arrived early in the afternoon, we decide that we should sit down to lunch, which of course must include Padron Peppers. To date on this trip we have not been really good at choosing places to eat. We consult google, but invariably the google suggestion is closed, or doesn’t seem to exist where google thinks it is, so we wander around for ages and then eventually settle on whatever is at hand. Although there were quite a few nice looking eateries in the town square, we started going through the google process. It didn’t take us long to realize that this was taking us nowhere, and we were all hungry, so we headed back to the town square and took a table at the first restaurant we came across. It wasn’t cheap, but the meal of tapas was fantastic. Beth’s favourite (croquettes), C’s favourite (Padron peppers), and a few others, all delicious. But no fiery pepper. I think we have busted a myth.

DAY 14: Padron to Santiago de Compostela (26KM) - 8 May

A bit nasty to make our last day of walking also close to our longest. It seemed to take no time at all before we were into the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela, but then as we counted down the last 10 km, it seemed to take forever. Eventually we shuffled into the square outside the cathedral, and S was there to greet us. He did well to spot us. This of course is where all the Caminos converge, so the square was a seething mass of sweaty pilgrims, most looking a little the worse for wear. It was a very nice feeling to finish a long walk and there was certainly a sense that we had achieved something. In tiny ways we were better, more learned, more fulfilled people than when we started out. I guess that makes us genuine pilgrims, even if it is only lower case “p”.

Our hotel was splendid. As 5 star hotels go, it probably didn’t have the level of services you might expect, but as an experience, it was amazing. The hotel was housed in what was the Hostal dos Reis Catolicos, or hostel/hospital for pilgrims built in the early 16th century and extensively added to in subsequent years. Back in the day this was a place for pilgrims to come to rest, be treated for injuries and illness, and to be fed. It is a huge and fascinating old building. We could have spent all our time in Santiago de Compostela just exploring this place.

We had two nights in Santiago de Compostela, so were able to do quite a few touristy things. We visited the cathedral of course, and queued up to look at the reliquary holding the bones of some poor unknown, and to climb behind the altar to embrace the statue of St James. We also climbed the spire at the cathedral and walked across the rooftop, which was a wonderful experience. Then we walked and walked and walked. You would think we had done enough of that wouldn’t you? Importantly, we also got a load of washing done at an amazing laundromat. You put your washing in the machine, then you could walk out into the garden at the rear of the shop and relax in the sunshine until you washing was done. Very civilised.

So that is it, we have done a Camino. We had a great time, and it was especially good to share it with friends.