November 26 – December 7, 2019
My friend Jerry and his daughter walked a portion of Camino
de Santiago in Spain this past summer. Laura and I had seen the movie The Way
and added this unique trek to our to do list. It wasn’t until the first week of
November when Jerry gave a presentation on the special walk to a business group
I am a member of. During his presentation I snapped a photo of his Compostella
and sent it to Laura. She responded “Let’s Go!” and so the journey began. Three
days after Jerry’s presentation, Laura and I had a rough plan so we booked
plane tickets to Spain and started planning details. We would walk for a total of 10 days and would complete
what we felt was a reasonable distance for the amount of time we had without feeling rushed. We
agreed to start in Astorga and walk around 150-160 miles, ending in Santiago.
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| The route was easy to find with signs everywhere |
It’s November 26th and we boarded our flight to
Madrid having only one stop over in New York. The first leg went smooth but on
the overnight flight to Madrid, Laura’s TV didn’t work. She did her best to
sleep. Arriving in Madrid the following morning, we wandered the airport, eventually finding the train station and purchasing tickets to Astorga. Several
more hours of layovers and delays had us arrive in Astorga around 7 pm. Our spirits
were still great despite the long travel time to get here. As we got off the
train in the pouring rain Laura walked ahead as I realized she had a large hole
in the butt of her only pair of pants! "Oh shit" she said, but we did some repair
at the hotel that night and all was good as they held up for the remainder of
the trip. We ate dinner at the hotel and retired to our room feeling wide awake
since we were now 8 hours ahead of our home time.
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| Water spigot along the path |
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| All towns had churches that you could see for miles |
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| Group dinner at alburgue |
That evening we had a fun
group dinner at the Albergue we stayed in. We chatted with a group of
students from Australia and a doctor from Canada. While we hadn’t seen many
others on The Way today, the Albergue was overfilled and was the only place
open in Foncebadon. The host knew it was 10 or miles to the next town and didn’t
want to send us off in the rain overnight, so they opened the attic and set up
beds for Laura and I upstairs. It was a bit chilly, but with our sleeping bags
we were fine.
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| The first alburgue we stayed at in Foncebadon |
Group breakfast started at 7 am and as we all finished we
headed out to a beautiful sunrise around 8:30 am.
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| Beautiful sunrise in Foncebadon |
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| Cruz de Ferro |
Today is Thanksgiving and we
would hike the 15 miles to Ponferrada. As we set off, we quickly came upon the
high point of the Camino – the Cruz de Ferro. Laura and I threw the stones we
had brought from home as a symbolic act of leaving our burdens behind. Hiking
up and over the high point of the trip, we enjoyed what was left of the autumn
colors on the trees and the outstanding scenery as we approached Ponferrada. That evening we toured a knights Templar Castle and were amazed at how old the structure and artifacts were. They had books in their library dating back to the 900’s. Overall I think this was one of my favorite activities so far.
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| Entrance to the Knights Templar Castle in Ponferrada |
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| Old stuff at the castle |
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| Excellent wine with olives |
It’s November 28th and we both seem to be getting into a good walking rythym. Today we walked the 14 miles on rocky downhill terrain to Villafranca. My highlight of the day - Breakfast!
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| Breakfast! |
The walk through the wine country was spectacular and beautiful, even with no grapes growing. The vineyards went as far as you could see. There was one home perched on a hill with some very large trees surrounding it and this was one of my favorite scenes of the entire trip.
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| Cool scene with a single house surrounded by miles of vineyards |
In Villafranca, we explored the cathedral and the gardens. We tried to go to a service, but they didn’t have one until the following night after we’ll be gone. We keep running into the same pilgrims in each town and have a friendly relationship with them, but we are planning to taxi the first 15 miles in the morning to help us shorten up some of our later days. We’ll still end up walking 16 miles tomorrow. This will put us one town ahead of most of the others that we have been traveling with so far.
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| The door of the church where pilgrims can receive a pardon if they are too ill to continue |
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| Laura, Giuseppe, Justin, Vicki |
We awoke to pouring rain and were very happy we had arranged
a taxi this morning to take us to Las Faba. Driving along, it only took us a
few seconds to realize the rain was really coming down and the wind was blowing
the cab around on the road. We asked the taxi driver to take us a bit further
up the hill to O Cebreiro to shorten our days walk by another 3 miles and save us
from freezing in the rain during the strenuous uphill portion. The driver dropped
us off at a small cafe that was open. We both ran in so we could get our rain
clothes on. Laura’s rain pants were now completely destroyed but fortunately
she was able to buy some in the store connected to the café! As we set off into
the rain and wind, Laura’s rain poncho now became torn. As I tied it together one of the
gentlemen from the cafe approached us and said he was giving us his poncho as
his coat and pants were sufficient. He was smart like me and owns good rain
gear, not old, torn and used up stuff from 50 years ago! Laura said “It was a
very nice poncho with a backpack expansion and was long enough to cover most of
my legs too." We thanked him and started walking through the forest.
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| Interesting 800 year old tree |
It didn’t
take long for Giuseppe, who had given his poncho to Laura, and his friend Vicki to
catch up with us. We started chatting and continued walking together. Both
Vicki and Giuseppe had walked most of the Camino, about 350 miles to this
point, although they had only met each other a few days earlier. We walked all
day through beautiful countryside and off and on rain with our new friends.
It’s amazing how easy it was to chat with them about a variety of subjects
despite all being from different countries. Giuseppe was originally from Italy
but lives in Switzerland and Vicki was from the UK. We reached Triacastela in
the middle of the afternoon and found our hotel quickly. We spent the evening
washing our very limited clothing and lounging around in the evening.
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| Views along the way |
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| Enjoying the walk despite the rain |
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| 1000 year old cypress tree next to a little chapel in Samos |
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| Samos monastery |
It’s December now and we are half way through out trip. Today
we walk Triacastela to Sarria. The Rio Sarria river was flowing high, cresting
the banks in many areas. We followed the river much of today and I wondered if
anyone had ever kayaked the Camino? Unlikely, but it would still be a fun river
to run. It had rained a lot in the past weeks here and the trail was muddy and
wet. We went from wet to drying feet all day, criss crossing the trail probably
100 times trying our best to avoid the puddles. Since it is wintertime here on
the Camino, not much is open but we were lucky to have found an open café in
Samos to dry out and get warm in. We had the usual, cocoa and café con leche
along with some bread. The large monastery was closed so we opted to venture
over to the 1,000 year old cypress tree listed as one of Spain’s 100 most
important trees.
As we continued on to Sarria, we caught up with Vicki and Giuseppe right as we walked into town. We agreed to meet up for dinner later and continued on to our hotel. This ended up being quite the challenge as it was listed on the wrong spot on the map we would use. We followed the directions for over a mile, straight up a hill and almost out of town eventually ending up at an abandoned market with no hotels anywhere in sight. We looked for street signs and addresses to no avail. We back tracked back into a more main part of town and found a store owner who knew where the hotel was. She attempted to give us directions, but the language barrier kept us from getting a clear understanding of where we should be going. With a rough idea of where we should be going, we headed in that direction until we saw a person down the street who was waving at as. She was our hotel lady and had been expecting us since we attempted to call her just a short while ago. She must have figured out that we were lost and had gone out to find us. After adding an extra hour and a couple extra miles to our hike, we messaged our friends and told them we were too far away to meet them for dinner. We ate at the closest restaurant we could find open and retired for a good night’s sleep.
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| Lots of interesting statues, this one incorporating a water spigot |
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| Enjoying the sights in Portomarin |
Our pattern seems to be set. Wake up and leave in the dark,
under overcast skies. Hope for sun but walk in our rain coats and fleece
jackets. Today we walk from where most pilgrims start from to earn their
compostella or finisher certification – the minimum distance is 100km. We
thought that we would begin to see more people on the way today, but as it
would be, we saw nobody just like every other day! We also thought that there
may be more open from Sarria on, but we were wrong on that as well. Today we
walked all day and did not find a single café open. For us this was no problem
since we had food from home still. We stopped into a small bakery as we reached
Portomarin and I had breakfast for lunch. Laura ate a sandwich. We walked the
block and a half to our hotel for the evening to find that the door was locked.
The owner had sent me a code to get in, but since I did not have any internet I
could not access it. We went on a search to find someone who could contact him
for us and eventually got ahold of who we needed to, gaining access to the
lobby and our room. The beds and shower were the best we had experienced yet so
we relaxed for a while before heading out to explore the town. Stopping in
several stores and visiting the church in the central part of town, we enjoyed
Portomarin very much. Dinner was the normal three courses with wine before
heading home for the night – alarm set for 7 once again.
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| Cold morning leaving Portomarin |
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| Getting above the fog, but still cold outside of Portomarin |
December 3rd – Cold and dark once again but today
started off somewhat unfortunate. We had been informed that the bar across the
street from our hotel would be serving breakfast only to find the place closed
and the doors locked when we arrived. We figured that we would try the café where
we had eaten lunch the previous day, but as we walked down the street, there
were no lights on anywhere at all. Laura and I broke out headlamps and started
doing the only thing we could on this cold and dark morning – start walking! As
we hiked up a hill exiting town, the fog was thick – likely from the lake that
sits at the base of Portomarin.
There was also frost on the ground this morning
making the cold a bit more real but also providing for special scenery and
beautiful pictures. As the sun brightened the sky, we both were impatient for
the sun to warm us, but as the conversation went, it just wasn’t like home. The
sky was light but the sun didn’t hit for another two hours! Oh man did the sun
feel good that morning! We decided to stop for a snack of our own trail mix,
cherries and jerky and quickly continued onward. About 2 miles before reaching our end point for the day, we found a nice restaurant that was open and very busy. This seemed to be a hot spot for both pilgrims and locals; the entire restaurant was full. We stopped in to warm up and each ate a delicious pizza before casually strolling into Palas de Rei with happy stomachs. We wandered the town until the sun went down and had a nice dinner. We talked about how the days had been flying by and how we found it interesting that more was not open this time of year. We are having a fantastic time and are genuinely pleased with this really cool experience to this point. Laura and I both agreed “we’re just cruising.”
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| Another bridge along the way |
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| This cat tried to befriend Justin |
On to Arzua today. Still frosty when we started out but the
sun would shine most of the day! I finally was able to take off my outer jacket
and even wore just a short sleeve shirt for a while just to say I did it. Today
we met Angelo, a fellow mountaineer from Italy. He had an Elbrus patch on his
jacket and with the mention of mountains, we quickly connected. There was a
fairly strong language barrier with Angelo but we had a great conversation for
several hours, nodding and laughing as we walked.
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| Another church along the way |
We reached Arzua early today
and found our apartment with ease – finally! Dinner tonight was at a nice
restaurant and was the best we’ve had so far on this trip.
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| Good trail through the forest |
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| Nice restaurant at our hotel in Vilamaior |
Our last day on the Camino and as we walk down the road toward Santiago, neither of us could believe how big the city was. I guess we had imagined something like the smaller towns along the way. As we descended into town, it seemed like forever walking across the city to finally reach our end point – The Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, which was built in 1211 and is said to be the burial site of the biblical apostle St. James. As we walked into the main square we saw our friends Vicki and Guiseppe and hugged as we each celebrated our own journey. Laura and I toured around the main square and went to a city park with a great view of the Cathedral. We had dinner and worked out a taxi for the next morning before heading to our hotel for the evening.
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| Santiago marker |
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| Feet at the pilgrims office |
The Camino de Santiago is a special walk for many reasons. The experience was great and walking is definitely a good way to experience a country. The architecture is amazing and the people friendly. Walking in the wintertime is absolutely a different experience than what most assume of the Camino but if you’re looking for a more solitary experience then I would recommend an off season walk. Laura and I are happy to have a new experience like this and hope to share it with anyone who is looking for a great and unique vacation.
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| The "standard" pose for finishers when they reach the cathedral |
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| Spires of the cathedral |
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| Justin socializing at the park |
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| The Prado museum in Madrid |
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| Christmas lights in Madrid |
