Day 30 - To Padron

We think that we've solved the mystery that stopped us having a meal in the hotel last night. I mentioned in yesterday's blog that while we were waiting for the restaurant to open the adjoining bar became full of football fans for the match between Manchester City and Real Madrid. Apparently, the chef for the restaurant decided that he wanted to watch the match too, so he didn't turn up for the kitchens until the match finished. A Dutch couple that we know, and are staying in the hotel, were also booked into the restaurant for a meal.  They decided to wait until it opened, which it did, eventually, at 10pm rather than 8:30pm. Apparently the meal, when it finally arrived was very good. By that time we were already asleep, ready for an early day today.

When we looked out of the window this morning the sky was rather grey, very overcast, with hardly any sign of the strong sun that we've had for several days.  We had a very good, but simple, breakfast in the hotel bar, where we learned about last night's fiasco from out Dutch friends. After breakfast we set out, in much cooler conditions than lately, through the town. We hadn't seen much of the town yesterday when we arrived. Then we had been very hot and tired, just wanting to find somewhere to stay.

Today we were leaving from our hotel, which wasn't directly on the Camino, and so we had, inadvertantly, bypassed most of the centre of the town.  We did, though, go over a nice bridge near the centre of town.

Just as we were looking at it we heard a call, it was Bernard who had stayed just nearby and had seen us going by and came out to wish us "Good Morning". We saw, and walked with him several times later in the day.

Walking was much easier today for at least two reasons, firstly it was much cooler and, secondly the route was less hilly than we've had for a while. Also leaving early helped.

We were soon overtaken by our Dutch friends, but we saw them later. Similarly we saw and talked to Clare from Toronto a few times. It's a feature of the Camino that you meet friends on and off as you progress, we didn't see Colette and Jan today, but probably will tomorrow.

The route had several up and down sections, but nothing serious. It did have lots of shady sections through woodland, they would have been useful yesterday.

When we were about half way along the route, and passing through a small village, we heard a call from the open window of the local school. It was the teacher of what seems to be the first class, a man, asking us where we were from. We answered, rather surprised, that we were from England. "Is this your flag then" he asked, holding up Union Jack. It seems that the teacher, every time he sees likely pilgrims coming past, enquires where people are from and then uses the information within his lessons with the children. He invited us in to see the display of flags in the classroom, and also the large collection of postcards from all over the world that previous pilgrims have sent to the children. He asked us to send them one from Yorkshire when we get back home again.

Overall it was quite an easy walk, especially as we are now less than twenty five kilometres from Santiago.

We are still undecided whether we will break the "last" section in two, so as to have an easy last stage into Santiago, or to "go for it" and do the last 24 kms in one section. This last stage is rather hilly and rather longer than we normally do. We'll see what happens.

We arrived in Padron reasonable early, not a terribly attractive town but reputed to be the place where St James's body first arrived in Spain, so is significant on the Camino.

We didn't see any obvious hotels and the albergues didn't really really appeal, the ones we saw looked rather run-down. I enquired at the tourist office and was given a list, and map, of all accommodation in the town. We found  a Pension nearby, the "Hotel Jardin" and checked in.

It is a very interesting building, in a not terribly interesting town, and we've got a very nice room for the night.

We soon showered and changed and went out for a drink and snack, only to find that there was a little drizzle in the air. This had been forecast, but was a first for us. We've been in Galicia fit the last five days, since we left Valença, and also spent about three weeks here on our previous Camino, and this is the first rain we've had in Galicia, Spain's rainiest district.