Day 0 Travel day

I was up just after 8 and on the road before 9.

The trip to Dublin airport was uneventful and we made it before 10:45, for a 1 pm flight. The boss and the dog took the car home.

My brother Ricky texted to say his flight had been put back due to air traffic control problems in French air space

I didn’t fancy any of the cafe/restaurant options in Terminal 2 for lunch, so I just bought a sandwich off the shelf in Smiths, to be washed down with a bottle of Classic Coca Cola. If I’d realised in time I was leaving from Terminal 1, I’d have had the nice all day breakfast they do in the café there.

Then I got a text from Ricky saying his flight had been cancelled, completely. The next flight out of Bristol, where EasyJet had abandoned him, was next Thursday. He was looking at what options he could find.

My flight was delayed because the berth was still occupied by the previous plane when our plane arrived.

We took off about 30 minutes late, but, by then, the nice pilot had told us we’d be taking the scenic route, to avoid the air traffic control problems in French airspace.

There were two levels of cloud cover, but I’m sure I spotted Blessington lakes through a gap that aligned in both layers. I think I spotted Rosslare, fleetingly, as we headed out to sea.

On the bus leaving Bilbao airport for the city, I met a lovely bunch of Meath pensioners, heading for Pamplona, to do a stint on the Camino.

Arrived at Bilbao bus station at 5, found my bus company and bought my ticket for the next bus at 18:30. The Meath pensioners got their tickets for Pamplona, but having more time to kill, went off looking for a restaurant to eat. Buen camino, friends.

The bus tickets are very precise, even down to allocating you a seat. I got 41, right at the wheelchair access door, which meant there was acres of legroom for my little short legs.

I got word from Ricky that Easyjet was now taxiing him to Stansted, putting him up for the night, to let him get a flight out tomorrow. He wasn’t sure at what time or to which airport he’d be flying to. There’s Bilbao, Santander and Barcelona available, though Barcelona is a bit too far from Logroño, to be feasible.

When I got to Logroño, I found the hotel and told them Ricky wouldn’t be coming. It turned out the room has just a double bed. Its all mine, now. Sorry, Ricky.

I went out around town to find somewhere to eat. I don’t think I’ve ever bring totally in my own in a foreign city before. As usual, after walking around for ages, I found one near to the hotel, on my way back.

It was bright and cheerful, fairly full, with the patrons watching a soccer match. I could only get a seat at the bar. I ordered Lomo, not being sure what it was. I looked it up on Google Translate which told me it was loin.

It turned out to be 4 thin slices of pork loin, a fried egg, small green peppers and some crusty French (style) bread. I took a picture, but don’t think this is going to be a regular feature of the blog.

I forgot to photograph the bread, but it was lovely, too.

So back to Pension de la Redonda, and bed.

Goodnight all, tomorrow is another day.

2019 Camino Blog – Day before travel

I’m almost set.

Everything is in the new haversack except my toothbrush and comb.

It weighs 13 lbs, about 6 kilos. I should have no trouble bringing on the plane as hand luggage.

My flight is booked, Dublin to Bilbao, where I meet up with my brother Ricky, who arrives from Stansted. Our flights are due to land within minutes of each other. How’s that for precision co-ordination.

We bus it from Bilbao to Logroño, where we have a bed booked for the night.

We’re taking just over two weeks to cover the 320 Km from Logroño to León.

I’m off to bed, now, early start in the morning.

2018 Day -1 Final preparations

Putting my final arrangements in place today. My full checklist is below.

It is with a heavy heart I go through the motions. My beautiful Border Collie, Milly, is very weak; she may not be here when I get back. I’m heartbroken. She’s been with us for nearly 12 years, and you’ve never met a more loving, intelligent dog, anywhere. I’d cancel the trip only I’ve committed to my younger brother, Ricky. It wouldn’t be fair to him.

I took this picture only today:

Anyway, my bag is packed, my flights and train trip are booked. I’ll be up at 5 in the morning for a 5:30 start, driving to Dublin.

I haven’t a lot of training done. I started the year well; I got back running and eventually started running Parkrun 5k’s. I got my time down to 25:30 ish by the end of May. I thought that was quite respectable.

However, I started training for the Comeragh challenge, doing long mountain walks and I did damage to my already bad left knee. Then I got a summer flu for nearly 3 weeks. The lack of activity that caused gave my knee rest, so I think it’s recovered. However, I’ve only got a few long walks in, a 12 miler, a 16 and a 20 miler.

We’re doing 7 days walking, from St Jean Pied de Port to Logroño, a distance of 163 Km, 101 miles.

I’m off to bed now, I’ve got an early start in the morn

Camino checklist

Clothes:

Underpants X 3

Tops X 3

Trousers X 3

Socks X 3

Sunhat

Fleece

Raincoat

Rain pants

Sandals

Walking shoes

First Aid:

Compeeds & plasters

Knee bandages

Sunscreen

Vaseline

Moisturiser

Painkillers

Toiletry:

Bar of soap

Toothbrush

Toothpaste

Toilet roll

Miscellaneous:

Phone

Passport

Money

Glasses

Spare glasses

Sunglasses

Tablets

Charger, leads, adaptor

Remembering my mother

March 21st 2017

Mother and father at a young age.

Today is my mother’s birthday.  She is 85, or would be, if she were still alive.  We just don’t know.   She disappeared without a trace this week 40 years ago.  I’m not sure of the day, nor of the date at this stage, but it was late March 1977.

Her father died when she was young.  As a young girl she worked in Willy Watts’ Sack and Bag factory in Mary Street, alongside her mother.

When she married my father in June 1950, he moved into the rented home, in Sheep’s Lane, that she shared with her mother.  He was 25 at the time.  I was born just under a year later.   She eventually gave birth to 10 living children, with one still birth.
 There was 21 years between the oldest and the youngest.

We were very poor.  My father worked as a lorry driver for the Sullivan Brothers of Tramore who produced soft drinks and bottled Guinness.  The dole was so low in those days that when he was sick, he took holidays, to claim holiday pay.  On the plus side, we were always well provided with discounted (or possibly free) minerals at Christmas.

He also supplemented his wages by bottling stout in a number of pubs, mainly The Queen’s and Harney’s.  He also worked as a barman in the Olympia ballroom (the bar was run by the Sullivan brothers) and in a couple of hotel lounges in Tramore.   He was also a member of the Order of Malta and a soccer referee.

My mother worked occasionally as a barmaid in The Queen’s, as well as having a child most years and rearing the others.  She bottled stout, too.  In fact, from the age of seven, I was assigned as her helper.  We bottled in The Queen’s on Tuesdays and Harney’s on Thursdays, after school time.

When I went to secondary school (on a scholarship) we bottled in Harney’s only,  because Thursday was my half day from school. We processed approximately 2,000 large bottles of stout in an afternoon.  I did the bottling while my mother capped the bottles, all by hand. 

My father was a traditional male, who never did domestic chores, and he was rarely around, with all the jobs and hobbies he had.  He did bundle us all in to the car and bring us to Tramore and Woodstown regularly in the Summer.  His refereeing involved many car trips to Dublin.   In the early years, my mother would bring me and my next brother along and we’d go to a film in one of Dublin’s many fine cinemas.

The house in Sheep’s Lane had one room downstairs, with the stairs in it, and only two bedrooms; Nanny had one, where the girls, when they came along, slept too, while the rest of us shared the main bedroom with our parents.  The four oldest boys shared a double bed; two up, two down, our parents had a double bed, and there was always the cot with a baby in it beside their bed.

It had no running water, no toilet, no bathroom ,and just one electrical socket.  There was a flushing toilet in the tiny back yard with a cold water tap on the outside wall.   It had no kitchen either, but a neighbour helped my father build a crude back-kitchen that we couldn’t use in winter.

While we were poor, we were a happy family.  When had many cousins and we were always in each other’s houses. We didn’t go hungry, whatever about the quality and simplicity of the food available. We got toys at  Christmas, played games and had a lovely time, overall.

In 1964, we moved to a newly built, 3 bedroomed, corporation house in Rice Park, with a bathroom, a kitchen and even a separate sitting room.  My father had been hired by Guinness as a driver in their new Waterford depot, only a few months before, so our family was coming up a bit in the world.

One night, in Harney’s, my mother had a bad tooth ache and my father gave her a glass of brandy to help kill the pain.  That was the first time in her life that she’d had an alcoholic drink.  She was 36 years old and had had 9 of her 10 children. 

Pretty soon, she was being helped from pubs at the end of the night with a supporting hand at each elbow.  In no time at all, she was hooked on alcohol.  She told me herself, once, that when she went to for a blood test during her final pregnancy, on our youngest sister, the doctor said that her blood was fine once the “doctor blew the froth off it”. 

She went into rehab a couple of times in Belmont in Ferrybank, to no avail.  A sort of guerrilla warfare ensued between her and my father.  She bought bottles of whiskey and hid them around the house, and he went on seek and destroy missions when he got home from work.  He smashed any bottles he found against the wall in the back yard.  I was married and moved out by then; I learned of it from my siblings.

Her relationship with my father clearly broke down; he didn’t trust her and she was using all sorts of tricks to get money and, ultimately whiskey.  And as a teetotaller, he most likely found it very difficult to deal with her excessive drinking.   The tension must have been enormous for both of them.
 There were certainly many rows.

On New Year’s Eve 1975, our Nanny died.  My mother was devastated.   They had lived together all their lives.

One night, in late March 1977, my mother kissed her two youngest children goodbye and told them she “was going to the river”.  They were 4 and 10 years of age.  She had no money of her own, no bank account or bank card, and took nothing with her.  That was the last time anybody ever saw her alive. 

Her body was never found.

My mother was a lovely, cheerful, friendly, outgoing woman.  She was very pretty, too, dedicated to her family and worked very hard to provide for us.  As her first born, I think I was her favourite, and all those long afternoons bottling stout brought us even closer together.  The older ones, like me, were lucky, we got the best of her;  our younger siblings only remember the bad times, when the drink had taken hold of her.

I miss her, and I wrote this blog to make a record of some sort of record of her life 
She was born Ellen Moore, and became Eily Collins on her marriage.  She’d be 85 today.

Happy Birthday, Mammy.

Camino Blog Day 31 Conclusions

Camino Blog Day

Wednesday June 1st

Santiago to Waterford

O Miles (walking)

My self and Ricky had a celebratory drink before we headed back to the Seminario Menor, where we had single rooms booked for the night. This is our 31st night sleeping in different beds, but this is the first time either of us has slept alone in that time.

Late evening sum on the bell tower  of the Seminario.

I got at 7:50 and met Ricky coming out to his door, just as I came out mine. He was on his way to call me, but I’d heard him moving around next door.  His flight was 10:35, while mine isn’t until 17:00.

We made our farewells and I saw him off from the front steps of the Seminario, in lovely sunshine. I went back to bed for another hour.  What luxury!!

I had to leave the Seminario by 9:30, so I checked in for my flight before I left at 9:20.

I was really at a loose end. I hadn’t been alive for a month. I felt a little lonely.

I wandered down through the new part of town, looking for somewhere to have breakfast. I had coffee and tostado in one on a busy street, and watched the world go by outside the window for an hour.

Then I did some wandering around, until I found a shady bench, to relax on for half an hour or so. Still feeling alone, I wandered back to the square in front of the cathedral, to see if I might meet any of our fellow travellers of the last month.

Not a soul showed up. Once the 12 o’c Peregrino mass was underway, I went and did my shopping. With a full rucksack already, I just got a few small things, as souvenirs for grandkids, and for my wife and my daughter in law.

I had a hankering for paella, but when I saw the large size of the dishes they were serving, I opted for spaghetti bolognese instead. After lunch I strolled over to the airport bus stop, to get the 2:30 bus. I met some Irish peregrinos, from Cork, there who had done the Portuguese Camino.

The airport was quiet, the flight was delayed 10 minutes, which was recovered in the air, we landed on time after an uneventful flight. We flew up the East coast, and I saw that part of the country from the air for the first time. In the sunshine, the place looked lovely, from Rosslare, where the two ferries coming in, to the Wicklow mountains, to the Pigeonhouse chimneys in dirty old Dublin.

Heather and the two dogs collected me at the airport. We called into my son’s house in Phibsborough, where he made lovely Pasta carbonara for us and showed us the puctures from the baby’s, Caoimhe’s, first holy communion last Saturday.

I drove home, first time in a car for a month. I had a bath and put on my pyjamas, to watch the Vincent Brown show. We discovered that the bottle our daughter in law, Linda, had given us leaving Dublin was a bottle of champagne. Lovely one, Linda! So, we watched Vincent while we quaffed (it’s ALWAYS quaffed, isn’t it?) champagne. In bed by 12:30 and out like a light.

I shaved myself this morning after breakfast.

I’ve been thinking about the final blog all day – final thoughts, if you like. I will write it tonight, if I can put it all together. 

Camino Blog Day 30 Arrival

Camino Blog Day 30

Tuesday May 31st

O Pedrouzo to Santiago de Compostella

12 miles.

We had a strange, quiet night last night. We’re both aware that today we complete our trek, but we don’t want to say we’ve done it,until we actually do.

We ate in Che4 in O Pedrouzo; I had the Peregrino menu (again) and Ricky had just a toasty and chips. The melon and Parma ham starter was just about OK – the melon wasn’t the ripest, the Patna was dry and just thrown over the melon. The fish was quite nice – I think it was cod. The pineapple dessert turned out to get two rings of pineapple. They did exactly what they said on the tin.

The wine was a mere glass of wine.  Just as well, I suppose after the surfeit of wine last night.
We had a beer on the way back to the albergue – well, I had a beer, Ricky had a Coke Zero. Then we were in before the 10 o’clock curfew.

We both slept OK, we even had a lie-in until 6:30 as we only have 12 miles to do.

The air was slightly misty when we headed off at 7:05, with a cup of coffee already under our belt.
The route brought us through nice wooded areas with lots of oak, young and old and a smattering of eucalyptus trees. Ricky could smell them around us, but my poor sense of smell as oblivious to them.

Being the last stage into Santiago de Compostelka, there were lots of people on the route. We passed nearly 50 before we stopped for breakfast of café con leche and tostado. The tostado was lovely, but was ruined by the fact the butter we got, to put on it, turned out to be rather bland margarine.

And that’s another thing: CYCLISTS. (See later)

We stopped for a cold drink at a kiosk at the top of a hill overlooking Santiago. We really stopped for a toilet break, after the coffee, but being a kiosk, there was none.

Rather than disrespect the grounds of the church beside the kiosk we went in the ditch of an adjacent field. However, a German woman spotted us from the height of an adjacent monument and took a picture of us, which she was showing all over Santiago, later in the day.

It’s OK, we know who she is, and,?more important, where she lives.
We arrived in the square in front of the Cathedral just before 11:30. It was strangely emotional for us. We’d completed our journey, it was over.

We decided to follow Sarah, Hens, Francesca and Regina into the cathedral for the pilgrim mass. However, we were stopped at the door because we were carrying backpacks. ‘Security etc…’ We were directed to an office where they took possession of them for us for €2 per bag.

Divested of our bags and our €2, we proceeded into the Cathedral for 12 o’c mass.

The church was packed, standing room only. The vast majority of the congregation were definitely tourists and not peregrinos. We thought that the fair thing to do would have been to reserve seating for those who had walked the long distances, but no, it was first gone, first served.

Another thing that struck us was was the number of people there carrying little backpacks, who seemed to have been no security risk, just because they were only carrying small bombs, presumably.

The mass itself was quite eloborate, as you would expect – no fewer than 9 priests participating, along with 2 nuns and a young boy. The boy explained the house rules to the tourists, while one of the nuns prepared the items on the altar and took the civilian from the tabernacle etc.

The second nun did the singing, and she sang beautifully, throughout the mass, accompanied by the fine organ which dominated the upper area of the nave.

The altar area was very highly decorated with gold or gilding, and dominated by a statue of St James, himself.

The statue of St James could be accessed from behind by a short stairs which led up and down either side of it. It was quite curious to see the constant stream of tourists going up and down behind it, all through the mass.
Some people put their hands around his neck for a few seconds, in what seemed like an act of devotion, before they descended down the other side. Others, took out their phones or their iPads and took pictures of the mass being celebrated below them. They would have had a clear view of the activities on the altar. Tourists!!!

The big event of the mass, which all the tourists awaited, was the swinging of the botafumeiro, the incense burner. It hangs on a rope from the nave of the church and, using ropes, it’s swung, quite spectacularly from side to side across the two transepts of the church. Of course, it was wall to wall phones and iPads to record it for posterity.

I took no pictures in the church.
After mass we met up with our German friends, as arranged. We took some photos and we proceeded to the Camino office to get official confirmation of our journey.

All peregrinos carry ‘passports’ which are stamped at albergues along the way, to verify the peregrinos progress. The first stamp goes in at St Jeam Pied de Port (for the Camino Francès) and, of course, the last is received at Santiago.

Sarah quickly realised that the queue for groups was significantly shorter than the individual queue, so Sarah, Regina, Francesca, Jens, Ricky and I were registered together, as a group, but we still got our individual certificates, only €5 when you got a cardboard tube to store it in, for the journey home. Sarah is also a dang and at photography.

We adjourned for a couple of pints in the midday sun, then headed our separate ways to fibd our beds for the night. Ricky had us booked into the Seminario Menor. After the couple of drinks and the sunshine, it took us a little while to orientate ourselves and find the place.

The rooms are basic, but nice – a bed, a closet, a table and chair, and a wash hand basin. The building is nice and cool. We’re meeting up with our Germans for food around seven, so I’m off for a shower.

Cyclists are a nuisance to walkers because the can come up fast from behind, quietly, many expect walkers to stand aside and let them through (though many are OK) and too many insist on using paths which follow the road rather the using the road itself, and leaving the paths to the walkers.

Postscript to today’s blog:

With all the hustle and bustle in the cathedral today, I couldn’t find the candles. I went back in tonight, to the Cathedral of St James of the Field of Stars and lit a candle to the memory of my friend Jimmy Wiley. Gone but not forgotten.

Camino Blog Day 29 Journey’s end in sight

Camino Blog Day 29

Monday May 30th

Boente to O Pedrouzo

18 miles

The albergue we booked into last night had a bar, which was a bit bare and empty, it didn’t look like a place that did food, nor was there a menu that we could see outside the door, so, when we’d settled in and had a rest, we headed out to the nice cheerful restaurant we’d seen earlier just up the village.

On the way out the owner addressed us in Spanish. It sounded like he was asking us were we going to eat in his gaffe. Ricky understood and told him no. He didn’t look a bit pleased.

The €10 Peregrino meal in the nicer place was lovely. We both chose the sane three dishes, spaghetti bolognese, chicken breast with chips and a slice of Vienetta for dessert. It was all lovely, as was the bottle of tinto that accompanied it.

As it was my birthday, we decided we’d adjourn to the bar and have another couple of drinks. One shared bottle of wine (€5) led to another, before we headed back to Grisly Adams’ gaffe before the 10 pm curfew. He was sitting in the bar, alone, in the gloom waiting to lock up.

As today’s was our 2nd last day and we only had 18 miles to do, and we might have heads on us in the morning, we have ourselves a lie-in till 6:30 instead of the usual 6:00.

We slept soundly and dragged ourselves out of bed, packed and were on the road by 7 am, a little ragged around the edges, but still able to walk.

We stopped at the first café we met for a cup of reviving coffee, only about 20 minutes into our journey. We stopped at the next cafè to use the facilities. There our German friends Jens, Sarah and Franny caught up with us.  They’d stayed last night in the albergue attached to the restaurant we’d eaten in.

We stopped again, around 12:30 at a roadside self service café that had a stall with flasks of coffee and tea, portions of cake, fruit etc. Every individual item cost €1, and there was a box for peregrinos to put their euros into. In a garden behind the stall was a covered seating area, where you could eat your purchases.

Our German friends were already in residence, eating the food they’d bought the day before to eat in Boente, which their guide had wrongly said was devoid of cafés, restaurants or even shops. And that was why we hadn’t seen them eating in the albergue restaurant.

We joined them but we couldn’t face the bread and cheese and stuff they kindly offered us. We managed to eat some portions of the cake we’d bought at the stall. It was a beautiful sponge cake, lovely flavour and nicely moist.

We were joined by Simon, the caretaker/resident of the roadside stall establishment. He’s from Southbank, London, but hasn’t lived in the UK for 17 years. He told us he’s been doing a lot of travelling and much walking, to find himself, which he done now.

Just as we were about to leave, the rain, which had been threatening all morning, finally arrived with a flourish. The Heavens just suddenly opened. Happily, in less than 10 minutes it was gone again and we were able to continue, in the dry.

We stopped again at  a nice restaurant at Salceda, where we had the nicest sandwich of the Camino so far between us. We’d never have eaten a full one each. It had cheese, tomato and lovely cooked ham like you get at home. And there were so many slices of ham in it, the ham was close to half an inch thick. Lovely!!

The route today was much busier, filled with many peregrinos doing the last 60 miles or so from Sarria. There was lots of new, fancy gear on show. Many peregrinos were using walking sticks, but in a manner which seemed to be a burden on them rather than an aid to their walking. He sound of the sticks was even harder than usual  to bear with sick heads.

We finally arrived in Pedrozou around 2:30, but we missed the Xunta albergue on our way in, it being hidden down in a hollow behind a supermarket. The walk up the village and back down again cost our little legs an extra kilometre, at least!

The albergue is big and busy. We got two lower bunks, though. Ricky went off and did a wash of all our gear, while I had a sleep.

Strangely, even though today was our shortest walk for over a week, we both felt it to be long, and were a little more tired getting in. Of course, I’m a year older now. I don’t know what Ricky’s excuse is.

We have done 488 miles now and are a mere 12 miles from the Cathedral of Santiago. It’s hard to believe we are just at journey’s end.

There’s no wifi, so apologies for lack of pictures. 

Camino Blog Day 28 The rain in Spain

Day 28 Sunday May 29th

Hospital da Cruz to Boente

22 miles

We had the Peregrino menu in a neighbouring albergue last night, as the Xunta one doesn’t do food.
Both of us had beans and pork as a starter.  Mine was fine, but Ricky found bones in his, which on closer inspection, appeared to be part of a pig’s tail. I was going to complain that I got no bones at all!

I had a nice fried salmon cutlet for main course, Ricky had nice pork chop. For dessert I had a fairly tasteless crème caramel, but Ricky got a very strange looking concoction of what the waitress described as cheese with quince. It was some kind of deep red jam/jelly on a bed of strange cheesy base.

Every meal is an adventure here.

We were in bed by 9:30; we had another long day ahead of us in the morning. We were up at 6 am and on the road by 6:30.

To begin with, the weather was just misty, but about 30 minutes in it began to rain. The rain was quite heavy and persistent. It looked as though it was going to last for the day.

It rained all the way to Palas de Rei, where had our first stop – croissants and coffee. There had been nothing open between Hospital da Cruz and Palas da Rei which meant we walked for 2:30 and nearly 9 miles before our first break.

There had been one albergue, Escuella, with lights on and people inside (including two Guardia Civil, drinking coffee), at one minute past eight, but the CLOSED sign was up, and we were denied entry, though it was lashing rain at the time. Most albergues close at 8 am.

After Palas da Rei the rain began to ease up and eventually stopped.
However, many of the paths were awash with nearly ankle deep mud and water. Fortunately my new shoes admirably coped with the wettest and muddiest conditions we’ve encountered to date.

We stopped for coffee at Casanova, where a large contingent of Irish pilgrims chattered with the excitement of the new, having started 3 days ago, in Sarria. They sounded like new recruits to us veterans of the road.

We spotted a bus load of peregrinos in Palas de Rei and a second bus awaiting peregrinos just outside Melide. We also met many peregrinos with new gear, and quite a lot are carrying tiny little rucksacks, which means their main bags are being transported from stop to stop for them.

The biggest mystery to us is how many of the newly rigged out peregrinos we passed, on the last stretch into Melide, seemed to have accumulated no mud on their boots or backs of their trousers, despite the muddy conditions we’d come through.

As we made Melide before 1 o’c we decided we’d have lunch before walking another 3.5 miles to Boente. We went to a shop/café for a couple of bocadillos, which turned out so stodgy we abandoned our plan to have eclairs for dessert.

My apologies to John Finn (Carrigman) who recommended a pulpederia to me for lunch. I wasn’t feeling terribly adventurous, and when Ricky said he had no intention of having octopus for lunch, I needed no further persuasion. Perhaps I made the wrong decision. Sorry, John.

We made Boente before 3 pm and booked into the OS Albergues Boente. We’re sharing a room that has just 2 pairs of bunks with the same Spanish man who was also refused entry to the shit  albergue this morning. 

The owner has a great beard and a bad leg, and seems to be quite a character. He tells us he’s from Madrid.

Storks make their nests on every high structure here. This is an electricity pole, we seen them on church bell towers, factory chimneys etc.

Camino Blog Day 27 New shoes, dry feet

Camino Blog Day 27

Saturday May 28th

Barbadelo to Hospital St Cruz

We were on the road again , like clockwork, at 6:30. We’d both slept well, though it’s getting more tempting each morning to have just another little snooze before getting up.

I was quite wary of heading out to do 20 miles in a brand new pair of shoes. Compared to the flexibility and lightness of the runners, that had served me so well, for so long, the hiking shoes felt like football boots under my feet.

As luck would have it, my timing was perfect, because it rained for a lot if the day, and we walked through mud and water for miles. The runners would have been useless, and my feet would have been soaked all day. The hiking shoes, with their Goretex kept my feet bone dry all day.

We stopped for breakfast at Casa Morgade which had a sign claiming only 99.5 Km to Santiago. You can never be sure of the accuracy of these signs, though.

We passed through the very edge of Portomarin, without venturing into the town. That was a mistake, because we found no place to eat until we reached Gonzar, at 12:30, which was a little over 5 hours total walking time, and nearly 3 hours after we’d eaten breakfast.

It was during breakfast that the rain first came. We waited about 10 minutes to allow the heavy shower to pass. When we left, it looked like the rain was clearing from behind us. However, when we got into the next valley, it looked like there was perpetual rain there, and quite heavy too.

Once we cleared the valley, we saw some blues skies ahead, over Portimarin. Bar a few drops here and there, that was the end of the rain.

At our lunchbreak in Gonzar we had beautiful fried eggs and bacon, probably the nicest dish we enjoyed since we left home. It certainly set us up for the last hour’s journey into Hospital da Cruz.

We’ve booked into the Xunta Albergue, nice and modern, bright and clean, but no wifi. How little we get for €6 a night!

There’s a private Albergue just down the road that does a Peregrino menu for €10, so that’s where we’ll done tonight. Who knows what gastronomic treat is in store for us? 

Our German friends from last night are here, too, as is Luliana, a German woman we met at the community meal in the ‘Celtic Building’ in Fonfria, on Thursday night last. 

The new hiking shoes seem to have had no ill effects, so far. After 20 miles, I think they’re broken in OK. Here’s hoping I’m not speaking too soon. Ah well, only 3 days walking and 50ish miles to go, they should be fine.

Again apologies for lack of pictures, due to lack of wifi.

Camino Blog Day 26 Pleasant company

Friday May 27th
Fonfria to Barbadelo

20 miles
We had a very interesting Peregrino menu last night. The meal wasn’t in the albergue itself, but the ‘Celtic Building’ just down the road.

The ‘Celtic Building’ is a modern stone-built, circular building, with a straw roof. Just inside the door, on the right, along by the wall is the bar, while the toilets on the left. The main eating area is raised, about 6 steps high, and along by the far wall, taking up the most if the circular space. There is another dining room under it, down a short flights of stairs.

The menu had no choices, you got what was served. First course was Galician soup, same as the night before in Trabadelo, mainly cabbage and potato soup. The tourers were distributed dir the guests to serve themselves.

Main course was he greyest, most glutinous rice you. could ever imagine, with mushrooms in it, we think. It was OK when you got used to it, but it was accompanied by a delicious beef stew.

For dessert we got Tarta de Santiago. Ricky says it’s basically bakewell tart without the jam. It was nice enough.

The whole meal was accompanied with lashings of red wine all round. Good value for €10.

We ate with an American couple, an Australian couple whose name is Lenihan, with Irish antecedents, and a Texan, called Mark, who talked a lot about himself.

We were on the road again at 6:40, with breakfast in Filloval around 8:10. We took about half an hour.

We took a couple of short breaks along the way, but we didn’t stop for food again until we were on our way out of Sarria, where we had a lovely meal in an Italian restaurant. I had Spaghetti Bolognese, which had mince in it; Ricky had a ham and cheese sandwich which used pizza bases as bread.

At that stage I had bought new shoes because my lovely, comfortable Brooks runners had finally given up the ghost. I bought s nice pair of Salomon road shoes for €90, reduced from. €120. I don’t know how I’m going to fare breaking in new shoes, but we’ve got only 4 days and 80 miles to go.

We found the Xunta (Local authority) albergue in Barbadelo and booked in. It’s bright and clean and we’d both got bottom bunks. We’re sharing with a German called Manuel, a male Spaniards, an American young woman named Melanie and a South Korean young woman.

We went up the road to Casa Carmen for the Peregrino menu where we met some old German Ellie travellers and a young student, called Nicole, from Seattle whom we had met coming out of Hontanas a couple of weeks ago.
I had Galician soup again, some lovely pork ribs and chocolate cake. And the usual flowing tinto.

We had a very pleasant, sociable evening. We discovered that even Germans have a sense of humour. So, here’s to Jens, Frennie and Sarah, the unofficial Camino grinch.

When we got back to base, it had been raining and our washing was wetter than ever. We tried to use the drier but it took 50c then refused to cooperate. I hung my gear on the backs of chairs, in hope.

Sorry, no pics tonight, no wifi, again.