Category: Uncategorized

We woke up excited to walk the remaining 11 k to Santiago. Thankfully, the rain held off for much of the morning. There was a different feeling about the walk today – excitement that we were almost at the end of our trek mixed with a little sadness that our adventure was ending. We walked for a while with a group from Israel who were there walking at their 50th reunion of officers training academy. They walked the last 100 k on the Camino Frances as many people did. It is necessary to walk at least 100K is to get a Compostela. We also walked with a young man from Malasia who was also walking the last 100 k.

A line of hikers heading to the finish in Santago

We made it to Santiago de Compostela just after noon. We were excited to walk under the tunnel entrance to the Plaza del Obradoiro to traditional bagpipe music. It is a festive atmosphere for all as it culminates the end of weeks of walking. It is a maginificent plaza and cathedral complex. We took the necessary pictures and found a cafe for lunch. While we were eating, we had a text from Slyvio and Eugeneo. While they made it to Santiago the day before, they returned to the cathedral for a few hours while waiting for their flight. It was nice to see them one last and final time.

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela began construction in 1075 and was completed in 1211. It is quite old. It is located at the end of the Camino and the destination of pilgrims since the Early Middle Ages. It is the burial place of Saint James the Great, one of the aposcles of Jesus Chris. The crypt, below the main alter houses the relics of Saint James and two of this disiples. It is available for viethewing. The cathedreal offers pilgrm massess at least twice a day at noon and 7:30 pm. The Botafumerio, the largest inscense burner in the world is often used at pilgrim masses. It is 180 lbs and measures 5’2 in height. It is attached to a pulley mechanism in the dome of the church and is swung above the heads of the parisioners dispensing incense by 8 men in red robes. It reaches speeds of 50 mph. It is quite a site to see.

After lunch we checked into our hotel, The Santa Filomena. When I was planning our trip, I saw the Hotel Santa Filomena and made a reservation as that is my mother’s name down to the spelling. It was a nice simple hotel that is a converted convent. We then headed over to the Pilgrim’s Office. As I mentioned in a previous post, we each had a credential that we had stamped at each albergue and pension we slept at for the entire 35 days. We also received stamps at numerous churches and cafes we visited. At the pilgrims office we showed our credentials and were given a Compestela and a Distance Certificate. We had walked 828 kilometers (mostly up and down hills and mountains) over 35 days on the Camino Del Norte! We are already taking about returning. 🙂

80 kilometers to Santiago

We spent a pleasant night in Vilalba and headed off to our next destination, Baamonde. We are now in Galacia and traveling inland from the coast toward Santiago. This is the 5th autonomous community in Spain that we have traveled through on this trip (similar to states in US). Each one has the right to self governance. On this trek we have traveled thru the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and now Galacia. Each has their own identity and dialect and the Basque Country even uses different letters.

the walk into Baamonde was pleasant but fairly uneventful. Baaamond itself was a small town that seemed to exist for the Camino. It had a very small grocery store and farmacia, 3 cafe/bars, a municipal albergue and the Pensión 101k which was where we stayed. Iywasat the Wewere now 101k from Santiago. Apparently it had the best food in town. While there, we met up with Sylvia and Eugenio, who happened to be staying at the municipal albergue and we had dinner with them.

The next morning we resumed our trek. We headed out past the beautiful and ancient church in Baamond which started being built in the 9th century, Once again the Camino took us up and down hills but the hills were now less steep. Shortly before arriving at our destination we stopped for coffee and met Dick from the UK who was out for a walk. He and his wife were volunteer hospitaleros at the donativo hostel run by the Confraternity of Saint James, a UK organization that promotes pilgrimages to Santiago in the UK. It sounds like a really nice hostel and I wish we had been able to stay there instead of the hostel we stayed at. Next time…. I think I would enjoy a two week stent volunteering as a caretaker for an albergue. Maybe when we are unable to walk long distances any more. It seems like a great any to meet and talk with people from all over the world, similar to walking the Camino.

Our albergue for the night was in a very rural small town. It had a small room which also served as the grocery store for the town. It also was the only cafe in town and they offered a pilgrim meal at night. While we were on the Camino the pope died which often came up in conversation. The funeral and services were on TV in almost every cafe we stopped at. Of course Spain is a county with many devout Catholics. While we were eating dinner at the albergue in A Lagoa with 3 Irishmen, two Italians and a handful of locals, the conclave elected the new pope. We all sat glued to the TV to see who had been chosen. When they announced that it was an American, all eyes turned to us as if we had some explaining to do. It was a bit uncomfortable given the dislike for our current administration from everyone we met. But in the end.almost everyone agreed that maybe an American pope would somehow help with the current situation.

I woke up and took a quick walk down the street to check out the view in the morning light. It was still amazing.

Today our destination is Barcia and most of our walk is on farm roads with rolling hills. We will end up back near the coast. John left our Pensión with Hank, our new friend from Belgium, while I stopped at the store to buy bread, ham and cheese for out lunch. It didn’t look like we would pass many services today. I also bought a small bag of olives, a bag of walnuts and fruit. These have become staples of ours to snack on as we walk. It took longer than e pected at the store and I didn’t catch up with John and Hank for over an hour. I enjoyed my solitary walk but was happy to catch up with them for some conversation. . We finally reached Barcia, where we had a reservation at an agriturismo and said goodbye to Hank who was heading to the next town. We were sorry to leave him as we enjoyed talking with him. We checked in and thankfully, the owner offered to let us use her washing machine. We showered and washed most of our clothes and hung them on the line next to hers. The closeline was under a roof which was good as it started to rain soon after I hung them on the line.

The village was very small and there was only one restaurant in town that did not serve food until 8:00 so we headed out for a walk to find the beach and the train station. The FEVE train stops here once a day but does not look like it is used very much. It is located at least a kilometer from town. There was a nice coastal walk that ran along the beach.

At 7:30 we headed to the restaurant, hoping they would let us order food a little earlier than 8:00. We had walked over 20 miles and were hungry and tired. But the bartender told us the kitchen did not open till 8:00 pm. There were several tables of men playing cards in the restaurant and several women sitting outside. We were the only non local people. At 8:00, the owner’s wife came in and promptly waited on us and then cooked our meal. She was very nice and recommended the regional specialty, Cachopo. This is a dish made with two large veal fillets, breaded and fried, and stuffed with ham and cheese. Of course it is served with French fries and some pimentos. We ordered one and split it but still were unable to finish. It was very good but a lot of meat. After our late dinner we headed back to our room and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately, the owners large extended family was staying in the horreo (house on stilts) that was converted into lodging and their kids were yelling and running up and down the stairs right outside our window well after midnight.

Despite the noise till late at night, it was a great day once again on the coast of northern Spain 😊.

261 more kilometers to Santiago

We woke up and decided to take a slight detour off the Camino to visit the fishing town of Cudillero. It was about 1 kilometer straight down hill to the sea from where we were staying. I thightbI had read we could follow a scenic coastal trail back to the Camino Norte but I must have read about a different town. The walk down to town was worth it. Cudillero is a town built right into the hillside with the ocean on the other side. Unfortunately, the only way back to the Camino without backtracking was a 2 kilometer hike up hill on a winding road. Needless to say John wasn’t happy about this – I wasn’t either. But it is was still worth visiting Cudillero.

After the long hike out of town we headed inland for a couple hours. We decided to take a bus 8 kilometers to shorten our walk. We consulted Google and found there was a bus coming in the next hour to Soto de Luina. We made it to the town in time to get a bite to eat and figure out where the bus stop was.

We found the bus stop and found it was no longer in use. Alsa is the big bus line in Spain and their busses are clean, large with Wi-Fi and usually on schedule. Since they built the highways, the Alsa buses now do not go into the smaller towns but instead stop at the rotaries at the exit. There is no actual bus stop, the bus gets off and directly gets back in the highway. In this case, the exit was 2 kilometers up a steep hill. There is no sign or shelter. We asked a woman out walking her dog and we thought she said to just stand at the rotary on the exit. We hiked up the 2 k and found the exit and just prayed the bus would show up. Luckily it did. 😊. We got off at our planned village but again the bus stopped on the highway and it was 2 k to the village and another k to our pension. We had to wonder if this time taking the bus to save some kilometers was worth it.

We got to our pension and after a quick shower I headed out to see what was around. . I had seen some people walking down the road. I looked at the map and saw the ocean was nearby. When I got to the end of the road I saw the most amazing views. I was standing on a cliff and below were beautiful beaches – one with some surfers but the others were deserted. It was quite amazing. We headed down to the bar for supper and saw Hank from Belgium. We had talked with him a few days ago. We invited him to join us and ended the day with great conversation. This is what the Camino is about – finding beautiful unexpected places and meeting friendly interesting people. I love it !

We took the train back to the coast from Oviedo and explored Aviles before heading back out on the Camino the next morning. Aviles is a port city and an industrial town with an old city center. We didn’t see too many other pilgrims there. The best thing about our time in Aviles is that I found a new pair of hiking socks. 😊. They are my new favorite socks. The guy that sold me the socks grew up near the monastery we plan to visit and told me we would would really enjoy our time there.

We decide to take a bus to the coast to shave off 5 kilometers from our 30k walk ahead of us today. We went to the bus station but no one was there. We soon found out it was a holiday today in Spain – it was Labor Day in Spain. The usual bus was not running. Our two Italian friends, Sylvia and Eugenio, who we met several nights ago walked by and we wished them Buen Camino. They were walking all the way and we decided to walk too, despite John’s hip pain. However, as we left the station, we saw 2 taxis sitting in front of us waiting for passengers so we decided we would take a taxi the 5 kilometers to the coast. It was a good decision. We had a 25k hike ahead of us – more up and down hills, but the weather was beautiful and we were looking forward to our walk. Labor Day in Spain is a day when many small towns have festivals and gatherings. We never knew what we would find as we arrived in a new town. Sometimes it was outdoor music or carnival rides. We saw pop up shops, lots of food and everywhere families were together enjoying the day. We arrived at our pension, rested a bit and headed out to dinner at the local sidereal. We got there just as the kitchen opened band soon the place was full. We wee the only non locals in the place. Everyone in town was having a great time and it was nice to see the families all together for the holiday.