O Porriño to Redondela/Vigo: up and steeply down

I slept pretty well despite the musical disruption and was up and out a little before 8. There was already no sign at all of the large stage at the top of the road from the albergue.

I found a busy cafe for breakfast and was soon on the road out of O Porriño. This part of Galicia is known as Spain’s granite country and large amounts of granite blocks are everywhere, even forming garden boundaries. The road (and it was mostly road initially) wound between several small villages before arriving an Mos, a pretty large village where some of my friends stayed last night.

There was also plenty of countryside between the villages, as the Camino began to climb out of the Loura valley. The distance to Santiago shown on the Galician concrete markers fell below 100km and now seems to be falling more rapidly - although that’s probably due to the ever present markers now I’m in Galicia.

After a coffee stop in Mos, the path climbed more steeply through woodland. There were several people offering wax sellos for our credentials. I stopped for the first but passed the rest.

With a glimpse of the ria de Vigo and Redondela far ahead, the path began to descend, gently at first. But then more steeply, including one part that was incredibly steep.

Redondela gradually got close enough to see the couple of cast iron railway viaducts which pass above the tiles roofs of the town. There’s also one much newer viaduct, I suspect part of Spain’s high speed network.

I arrived in Redondela and made my way to the Xunta municipal albergue, where I hoped to stay. I knew this albergue was smaller than some, with only 35 beds. In addition, this elite me who been on the Central Português been joined today by those walking the coastal route.

When I arrived there were at least 45-50 people ahead of me, including the South African family, who were also placed in the low 40s. There were also plenty of folk behind me. I got chatting to a man from the Wirral, who was walking back to Porto to meet his wife, having been to Santiago.

At 1pm the queue began to move forward as the doors opened. The talk in the queue beyond the 35 beds was that some guidebooks and apps showed the albergue had at least another 10 beds and so there was hope that there might be some form of overflow arrangements.

Alas, as my South African friends were almost at the door, word came back that the albergue was full and they wished the rest of us a Buen Camino and good luck finding accommodation.

The remaining crowd dispersed, disheartened, with concerned heads in guidebooks and phones, searching for somewhere to stay.

I decided I was hungry and so headed into a nearby cafe to get lunch whilst I worked out what I was doing. Whilst in the queue, I’d messaged the 10 next largest albergues to ask if they had space, notwithstanding that the online booking suggested they were full.

I rapidly decided that I’d need to look outside Redondela, and so considered several options with available beds or rooms and the potential transport connections (and the cost, as all of these were going to be more than the 10€ for the Xunta).

I ended up booking a room in Vigo, a bigger city only 15 minutes away by train. This was in a cheap-ish hotel, 15-20 minutes walk from the station. This turned out to be in the Santiago district of Vigo, with a church dedicated to Santiago (St James) a few streets away.

Having a proper bed with proper sheets etc and en-suite facilities seemed like luxury compared to the usual arrangement in an albergue. Doing my laundry in the tiny sink in the bathroom was slightly tricker but do-able.Read more