Day 27 - To Cesantes

After our good evening socialising with Clare from Toronto we both slept very soundly, resulting in a rather later than planned departure from Porriño. We had a coffee and grotty croissants in the hotel's cafe, everyone in the cafe looked miserable, possibly us as well. We also needed some cash from the bank machines and one or two other odds and ends, otherwise known as nibbles from Lidl, before we got under way. We were again surprised at the size of the town just like our entry into the town we passed through seemingly endless industrial areas before eventually getting into the countryside.

One area on the stage of town featured a number of extremely large, house size, rounded rocks. Essentially they were king-sized pebbles.

Not having enjoyed the hotel's coffee we were looking for an alternative. We had to walk to Mos before finding one, a distance of about 7 kms. Here we found a very nice place in the village square. It was well attended by other pilgrims, including Bernard. He had stayed at the albergue last night but found it noisy from the road, and also many people were up very early making lots of noise before they left on the Camino. Overall he wasn't too pleased with his stay there.

It had been a longish, steady, climb to Mos, followed by some more climbing and then a slight drop that really was there only to tease you before yet more climbing.  Most of the walk, after we finally got out of Porriño, was through the usual nice countryside of Galicia with yet another hot sunny day.

Having said before that there was always a shortage of good stopping places for pilgrims we came across another one, a dedicated stopping place for pilgrims, the second in a few days.

Someone must be listening to me somewhere.

We stopped later for lunch, having the now fairly common bocadillãs. Nearby we reached the 80km marker stone along with a collection of other stone carvings.

Around here the land was fairly level until, in some woods, we turned a corner and were suddenly confronted with a stunning view of the area around Redondela in the semi distance, but also a view of a very steep descent just in front of us.

The height that had taken us a half day, or more, of steady climbing to achieve, was about to be negated in a very short distance and time. The road downhill was exceedingly steep and very hard work to negotiate but we managed. Now back on the lowlands it was still about 2-3 kms into Redondela, part of it along a very busy road, not very pleasant in the heat.

Redondela is characterised, in some ways, by its two very high viaducts that pass over the centre part of the town.

They are very spectacular pieces of, I think, Victorian era vintage (Update: Built by Eiffel). We saw many pilgrims there, many were staying in the town, but we had decided to go a little further to Cesantes. We had already booked a place at a Pension there.

We had thought that Cesantes would be on the same level as Redondela, having no evidence to support our thought, but found to our discomfort that another longish climb had to be negotiated before we arrived at our place for tonight. At lead, we kept telling ourselves, it was a climb that we now wouldn't have to do first thing in the morning.

We found the bar very quickly, but we were then surprised to learn that the actual accommodation was in a separate, very nice, building a short distance away. We were soon installed and glad to have a rest. Later we went back to the bar and had the "Pilgrim Menu" meal. We both chose the the same item, very large portions of a tasty chicken dish for the main course, with starter and puddings as well. Very good value.

Day 26 - To Porrinõ, in Spain

When I finished catching up with this blog last night in the lounge I returned to the dormitory at about 9pm to find it all in darkness. Of course it was 10pm Spanish time, but still rather early for lights out. Not wanting to disturb those who had already settled in their bunks I decided to get into my bed as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn't root through my rucksack to find the charger for our phones etc. That meant that today my devices had flat batteries. Both my phone and tablet were dead. The same applies to my camera, but that has exchangeable batteries and the spares were fully charged.  I had hoped to awake early and put them on charge this morning, but that didn't really happen. I managed about half an hour's charging before we left but that's all.  So today we travelled without benefit of GPS and mapping. Not a great loss but they have proved to be useful in the past.

We left the albergue at about 7:45 Portuguese or 8:45 Spanish time. We walked through the citadel part of the city, it was a ghost town. We saw nobody as all, it was totally deserted. Yesterday it was thronged with crowds of people, this morning - nothing!

We soon found, and crossed the bridge between Valença, Portugal and Tui, Spain, and adjusted to the one hour time difference.

We stopped off at the cathedral in Tui to get out credentials stamped, walked a little further to a cafe and had out first breakfasts in Spain on this walk.

The rest of the day was simply a case of walking to Porriño. This route was through totally rural Galician scenery.  Along the way we kept meeting up with Colette and Jan, from France and occasionally other pilgrims. It was a very hot day with long distances between cafés, quite tiring.

We were following a "new" route through this part of the country. It avoids, apparently, a very long stretch off dead straight road totally through industrial areas. The photographs shown on the various leaflets, and the little bit we did see and pass through, were a good reason for the change. It would have been extremely tedious to have walked through the bypassed area. The section we did walk through, on the outskirts of Porriño were enough.

There is a lot of stone quarrying activity around here and all the other industry that supports it.

As we entered the town we passed a Camino marker stone showing the distance to Santiago to be less than 100km.

We're now in the last stages of our trek, we estimate that we'll reach Santiago by next weekend all going well. As if to confirm that we have now completely filled one credential each. Any more stamps will have to go into the new credentials that we bought in Porto.

We had decided that we would not start in an albergue tonight but somewhere where we had more control of bedtimes and lights. Initially we couldn't find anywhere in what was a rather dismal area. Eventually, with the help of a local lady, we managed to find a hotel on the centre of what turned out to be quite a pleasant town. We soon settled in, showered changed etc.

Later we went down to the bar for a drink and snacks. There we met yet another solo lady traveller from Canada - Clare. She had travelled the various Caminos previously, all solo as her husband doesn't like walking, and also worked as a Hospitallero in Ponferradda a year or so ago. We had a very good evening, with good conversations and a few glasses of wine.