Walking to Palas de Rei

A longish walk today - 25 kms - and again a lot of up and down...I had forgotten how hilly Galicia is!! Nowhere is flat. But again it was gorgeous scenery, which made up for the effort. And from now on our days are shorter distances...yesterday and today were the longest in this section...I think we had a few long ones early on. Anyway, we are here, showered and relaxing in the bar of this very pleasant “hotel”. It’s not really a hotel, but a complex...there are outdoor spaces with playground, and the accommodation is in rows of almost cabins...sort of lines of rooms...all beautifully equipped - great shower (very important). We were here 5 years ago, but it was raining when we arrived I seem to remember.

Today we were so lucky. It did rain as predicted starting in the night, and we woke to raindrops and a wet scene. And it was dark - the sun doesn’t rise till 8.50 now, so with clouds it seemed dark longer, and we didn’t start walking till about 8.40, with ponchos and a light drizzle. This only lasted a short while, and finally we took off the ponchos (they had conveniently dried by then) and had a lovely walk. Again the Camino seems to go uphill from the towns which are by a river (Sarria and Portomarín anyway)...so we walk high in the hills, and today only a few dairy farms, often in wild land with wonderful views, and little villages now and then. Today I spotted eucalyptus trees....I remember this from before. They are in plantations, in neat lines, and I wonder why. Is it for the timber?

One memorable thing from today, with our new batch of pilgrims, we saw a baby being pushed in a stroller along the Camino...I don’t know how far they planned to go, or how long the baby would tolerate it...it was sleeping when we saw them..I think they were French. And another great thing was that just before we got here we stopped for a Cola Cao and OJ and Judy and Dorothy, our Canadian Camino family, walked up and so we walked with them for a while till they reached where they were staying. Lovely to see them, as we knew they were nearby, but you don’t always bump into people. Also Jessica was at our hotel last night, so we had a catch up with her too. All good. As we only have a fairly short walk tomorrow, and because we are now about a kilometre out of town, tomorrow morning we plan to see this town before setting off, and then head to our next destination which is Melide.Read more