Day 42: Sarria to Portomarin, 22 km

The day started off chilly, around 44 degrees, but soon the glorious sun was shining and we warmed up pretty quickly. It was so nice to walk in the sunshine after the last few days of rainy, windy, cloudy, stormy weather.
There were lots of pilgrims on the trail out of Sarria this morning, many of them on their first day. Sarria is a popular starting point for a lot of people because it’s only about 114 km from Santiago and it can be walked in 4-5 days. A pilgrim has to walk at least 100 km to receive the Compostela, so starting from Sarria makes sense. A lot of pilgrims complain about how crowded the trail can get, but I was happy to see so many people walking their Camino.
Our walk was really beautiful today, mostly through forests and farms. However, some of the farms were so stinky we had to put a cloth to our nose to breathe! Think stinky fishing gear, then multiply it! 😂
We are in Portomarin, Spain tonight. It’s called the ‘newest old town in Spain’ because it had to be moved to higher ground after a dam was built in the 1950’s. The church and some other buildings were moved brick by brick to the new town site high above the river. Almost all of the buildings are painted white, making this a very unique looking town.
We’ve got a couple of long walking days ahead of us, including a 24+ km walk tomorrow. It looks like we will have lots of up and down walking the rest of the Camino, but nothing as steep as earlier, so hopefully I won’t struggle too much these last 4 days!Læs mere