The last 5 miles! 187 miles for the whole journey, and about 2,800 miles that we’ve hiked throughout Europe in the last 11 years.

We left our B&B Hotel after an excellent and free breakfast!

Actually,  that hotel may have been the best accommodation that we’ve had this whole trip! The price was inexpensive, the accommodations, excellent, and pretty much free everything from there. Yes, we’d definitely stay there again!

With just a few miles (and way markers) to go,

We were soon in Santiago!

What a moment! This was actually the 3rd time one of our Caminos ended in Santiago. It is special.

It is also changing. These days, nearly every street in the old town is packed with us Pilgrims with backpacks. Thousands of them. I’m honestly not sure that this is sustainable.

That won’t be our problem, though. This is likely our last journey through this city.

All for now. Buen Camino.

Today was 30 (?) miles, 13 walking and a 17 mile boat ride!  Total distance hiked this trip is 182 miles.

The morning started early for us, with an 8:00am appointment for our Pilgrim’s voyage up the Ulla River following the traditional path of St. James’ bones.

During the boat trip, the skipper pointed out the massive fishing industry along the estuary/River

There we literally thousands of these mussel harvesting platforms throughout the first few miles of river.

The river is also punctuated by multiple crosses,

Finally, we hit land and began our hike.

And along the way, we met a cheerful bagpipe player and his accordion accompianist!

Finally, it was our room, laundry, meal and a good night’s rest!

Another 12; we’re at 165 miles walked now. Not a lot of climbing.

The defining characteristics of today are: Rain

The river

the sea, again,

and the grape harvest!

The sum of all these was another beautiful walk!

Another 11 miles, bring us to 153 miles hiked!

No Vuelta bicycle race today,  just rain, a mountain and a beautiful hike!

First,the rain

Now, the beauty

Tomorrow is probably another day of rain, then it should be clearing for a while. That’ll be good 👍

Today was the shortest stage we have ever had, at 6 miles. Our total for 11 days is now 141 miles walked.

There’s no wifi at our place this afternoon, so the post will be brief.

We learned this morning that the Vuelta a Espana (the Spanish version of the Tour de France) was going to start at 1pm in the Town we planned to finish in. Since it was a short day, we figured we could make the start, and the “sign in”, which happens before the start.

Here are some photos from along the way to the start

And the current 1st, 2nd and 3rd place riders.

And finally, the real super champion of Spain!

All for now!

Today’s walk was 13 miles, with some rolling hills (1500′ of ascent). The journey, so far has been 135 miles.

The story of today is about path convergence; Pilgrims coming together. Some background is helpful. On leaving Porto, there are two paths available. One, the Central route, goes up the middle of the country, headed north. That one is the historical path and also the more popular.

A second path leaves Porto and heads west to the coast, the northward. While it doesn’t have the same history, it provides more than it’s share of beautiful views! That’s the one we chose to walk.

Finally, while not a separate path, at Vigo (2 days ago) many people with limited time (or energy) start their Camino walk. That way they can complete the journey to Santiago in less than a week.

At Redonela, all these paths meet up!

What that means is that, while the views remain beautiful,

The trail now has far more Pilgrims than before

It also means that there are plenty of services geared to the Pilgrim.

Ultimately, we made it to Pontevedra, our stop for the night.

Pontevedra is often home to the World Triathlon Championship (age group). We have several friends who have qualified and attended these championships, including a podium or two! It’s not on our bucket list, though.

All for now

We’re back on the road again! After a rest day,  we walked 11 miles to Redondela bringing our total to 122 miles.

The walk started with two features, rain and a climb!

Diane is demonstrating the appropriate rain gear.

Regarding the climb, yesterday (our rest day) we explored the two different possible routes of of town. The first follows the waterfront for a couple miles, then shoots up at about a 20% gradient for a half mile, to the principal trail. Even without packs on, it hurt! That’s a lot of steep!

The second option does that climbing over a 3 mile stretch; very easy! We chose that one for today.

Once up in the hills, the trail was beautiful and the views, excellent!

Oh, and we started seeing the kilometer markers again. We’d be less than 100 kilometers from the finish, if we didn’t have a detour planned, starting Tuesday!

All for now!

Today was 13 miles and 600′ of climbing.  We’ve covered 111 miles, so far, and 5600′ of ascent.

What an enjoyable day! It was almost entirely strolling along the beachfront leading to Vigo! Some minor ups and downs, but mostly flat and along the beach.

History lesson: When Chris Columbus returned from the new world on his first voyage in 1493, his first landfall was at Nigrán/Biona. While Chris didn’t debark there (he just re-provisioned), the first news of his new discoveries spread from there, inland to all of Europe.

The beach there is named Playa America (from his voyage)

and even his Captain, Vicente Pinzon, had a hotel named after him

Probably, the deckhand was named “baño” because there are a lot of buildings named after him!

We also made a discovery ourselves. We found a prehistoric relic, probably Neanderthal in origin. We think it is called a “phone booth”.

Some more walking along the beach

and we made it to Vigo and our hotel. We will stay 2 nights here, giving us a rest day tomorrow. Our feet will appreciate it!

TTFN!

Today was another 13 mile stage. After 7 days of walking, we’ve covered 98 miles, with a total of 5000′ of climbing.  We’re averaging about 14 miles per day.

An army marches on their stomachs (I think Napoleon said that), so this Perigrino army marches on good food.

✔️!

Today was another rainy start to the hike, but we were soon gifted a rainbow

Along with beautiful views of the coast/sea.

One of the stories that Camino walkers have been talking a lot about over the last couple months are all the fires in Galicia. Here’s a first hand view:

You could still smell the smoke!

Shortly after this, we met an interesting guy from Albany, California. He was walking a reverse Camino, from Santiago to Porto! Nice guy.  His counsel?  Avoid the ‘scenic bypasses’. They aren’t that scenic and they take a lot of extra walking. Okay

Finally, the sun came out, as we walked by a nice beach.

And, as a final note, we found out that Diane is a Hotel heiress! Or at least some distant relative is!

All for now!

Today was a 13 mile journey, with 1000′ of climbing. We’ve now covered 85 miles and climbed a total of 4,600′.

We were actually surprised yesterday when we realized that today’s journey, the sixth stage, would take us out of Portugal and into Spain!  It just seems like the Camino is passing by too fast!

The first step today was to board the small boat

From there, it’s a one mile ride across the River Minhas to Portugal and the rest of our walk. Well, we made it about half way (just after I snapped this photo)

when the motor on the boat quit! El capitan said,  “no worries” as he grabbed an extra gerry can of gasoline. After filling the tank and attempting to start the engine, he then said, “hmm”. (Not good! ).

He then located his spare battery and hooked that up and the engine fired right up! In the meantime, we’d drifted about a quarter mile. Fortunately, it was up river and not out to sea!

Once ashore, we had a bit of a forest hike

And then out to the ocean for miles of beautiful shore walking.

One final note. On crossing into Spain, we entered the region of Galicia. Galicia does a great job with their Camino signs. Here’s one, indicating that we have 158 kilometers to go!

That’s about 100 miles, for those Americans.