Walk and bus to Portomarin

Another beautiful day…if the predictions are right, it should last till the weekend, when there may be afternoon thunderstorms…meanwhile, good walking weather, and hot this afternoon! The walkers left Sarria at 8.30, and arrived at Portomarin at 4.15…a long day’s walk of 22kms…, quite demanding but through beautiful countryside and I now have the photos from them to show.

Meanwhile, I had to wait until 2.15 for my bus, that I hoped existed! I didn’t have to check out till midday, so could amuse myself doing my word games etc, and called Paul for his birthday tomorrow in case I don’t catch him then, and also spoke to Cathy, Liv and Ted…so all in all it was fine, but it is a bit of a flat feeling when they have all walked off.

Had a bit of a walk around, and went to the bus station early to try and find out which bus went from where…a nice Italian woman turned up, also going to Portomarin, and it was comforting to know someone else was hoping for the same bus…then quite a few more came out of the woodwork as the time got closer…I guess there are always camino injured, or tired, but when we knew which bus there was quite a little crowd. My Italian friend, who had lived in America and spoke perfect English, and I want to get to Palas de Rei tomorrow and hope to share a taxi as the only buses are 7am or 5pm…we swapped phone numbers, and hope to connect.

Meanwhile A, R and R arrived at a bit after 4…Portomarin is a lovely little town set high above the river, so you have to climb many steps to arrive…hard at the end of the long walk! I clearly remember doing that…so I met them at the top of the steps…the village used to be down by the river, but in the 60s Franco made a dam and the village would be underwater, so they moved and rebuild the Roman church, and other historic buildings up to the higher site. Amazing. We are in different hotels…both very nice. Ours is on the camino and was very close to the bus stop which was handy. Nice room, except twin beds, with our own balcony (where our washing is already dry) and view down to the river. And R and R also have a very fancy hotel, near where have previously stayed, and we are all happy with our accommodations! The river at the moment is full of water, but I do remember in autumn it was a very green but waterless riverbed and I thought the dam had taken the water away…apparently it does dry up after a dry summer…anyway at the moment it looks lovely and full.

We met at 6.15 and had dinner and now back and unwinding…still bright daylight, and cooling off for the night. Lovely and peaceful.Read more