Day 9 – Padron to Santiago. 15 Miles.
We were up at 5 am and on the road for 5:30. The plan was to try to make 12 o’c mass in Santiago. To have any chance of a seat at it, we’d need to be there by 11:30. Our pace has been a little slow, about 3 miles an hour. 15 miles would take 5 hours walking leaving 1 hour for breaks.
So, there I was, getting up at 5 in the morning, to walk 15 miles, to go to mass. I’ll be excommunicated from my atheist club.
We took our first break at A Picaña, a little over 5 miles out. Just as we were leaving the village, it started to rain slightly. The way ahead looked rather dark, so we thought there was going to be a downpour. As we were passing a café at the time we decided to let the rain pass. We waited 20 minutes, but the rain never came in earnest. We knew then that our contingency time was all gone, and we had no break time left, if we were to reach Santiago by 11:30.
We stopped again at Milladoiro, about 5 miles from Santiago. Just as we were getting up to leave, the rain started in earnest. We sat it out. We finally reached Santiago around 1:15 pm.
This picture was taken by a Russian woman, from St Petersburg, whom we met at various stages over the previous week. She’d started on the coastal route from Porto.
We signed into the Seminario Albergue, not far from the Cathedral, where we got three single rooms at €16 each. We had a shower and headed back downtown for food. We had one of our nicest meals of the Camino for €10. Then we went to get our certs to record our Camino from Porto to Santiago. The Oficio was crowded and it took us almost an hour to get it done. It was time for bed, then, so back to our albergue. We all went to bed, tired but happy.
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