Day 7 Padron to Santiago 25 km

We did an early 7:30 am start to make sure that we could get to Santiago by lunchtime (it's all about the food), so we did the first hour or so in the dark.  The route was well marked all the way, that is until we actually reached the outskirts of Santiago, at which point all route markers seemed to vanish!  I guess they expected God to guide us in from that point (however we turned on google maps instead).

Here are some video snippets from the last day of our Camino, you can walk with us virtually:

A lot of the Camino was through small Galician villages, this was my favourite part of the camino.  Beautiful laneways, the terror of seeing cars racing at you from around tight corners, etc.

We crossed a few major intersections, highways and industrial areas, but not a significant amount.

The wooded trails were easy on the feet, however the dirt trails were often uneven and muddy.

A plaza full of sweaty pilgrims!!!

And some pics:

Some nice trails.

An auspicious distance marker.

Sonya calls these things "infidel shacks" and she says this is where I will need to stay if we ever move here.

10 km to go!

A nice view.

Arrived at the end of our pilgrimage!

We Arrived in Santiago!

More details to follow later.  First order of business is a shower and a drink!!!

Day 6 Caldas de Reis to Pedron 19 km

95 km under our belts and 25 km to go!  Una dia mas!!!

Today was painful but not as bad as yesterday.  All my bits were hurting (feet, knees, etc) and between Sonya & I we are down to 13 toes.  Tonight we are in Padron, which is a small town but has an extensive collection of ancient artifacts (church from the 1500's etc) that we are much too tired to appreciate!  We had dinner in our Airbnb (chicken wings & salad) and are planning for an early 7:30 am start for our last day.

Some pics from today:

Today included a lot of trails, but also a lot of cobblestones!  This is the road out of Caldas de Reis in the morning.

Does anyone know what these plants are?  I thought maybe brussel sprouts at first, and Sonya said maybe kale, but I think we're both wrong.  It's a very common plant here!

More cobblestones!

Some random church along the way.

Here we are at km 34.390 stopping for a rest and a snack.  (Cookies with dark chocolate that I snuck into our grocery cart.  Sonya doesn't normally like buying snack food but now she sees the benefit!)  Interestingly we stopped at a pop-up cafe a couple of km back (at around the 37 km mark) that was advertised (and even had stamps that said) 34.584 km, but this was the closest to that distance and there was nothing around but trees and more trees.  So we stopped anyways.

More damn cobblestones!

Some factory off in the distance, punctuating the view.

Another church, just outside of Padron.

We THOUGHT we were walking into Padron, but it was a small town just before Padron that was placed there just to fool us.  We were still 2 km out at this point.

Tomorrow is our last day of Camino-ing.  We're hoping our various body parts hold up for one more day!  We have 2 nights in Santiago (a full day to recover and maybe get a pedicure (Sonya)) and then we've got a bus booked back to Porto.

Day 5 Pontavedra to Caldas de Reis 22 km

Hordes!!!  We haven't seen too many pilgrims on the route before today, but this morning when we hit the road there were hoards and hoardes!  We thought it was because we were starting earlier than usual (8:30 am vs 10:00 am or later) but a nice Canadian lady informed us later that many of the Camino routes merge at Pontavedra, so we were now seeing a lot of the pilgrims that walked up the coastal route from Porto etc.

As an aside ...  this nice Canadian lady spotted us as fellow Canadians from across the square as we were eating lunch at Caldas de Reis.  "How did you know we were Canadians?"  (We generally don't plaster ourselves with maple leaves, so as to not be confused as Americans pretending to be Canadians.)  "I saw your Thriftys bag."  "Ah, ok!"  (On the Camino we carry our food in a Thriftys bag so it doesn't get squished in our packs.)

A few pics from today's walk:

Heading out of Pontavedra

Uphill slog

There was some repaving going on ...

Most of today's walk was alongside vineyards and corn fields

One section of the trail was through a tunnel of grapevines

Selfie in the grapevine tunnel

Within sight of Caldas de Reis!!!

A church just before getting into town.

We've been lucky with the weather.  It rained last night, but this morning was just cool and overcast, and by noon it had cleared and it was very warm.

Not so luck with injuries.  Before today I've just had one blister and misc aches and pains (yesterday my knee was bothering me going up & down stairs but today it was fine).  However I started to feel some tenderness in my achilles today going uphill, and by the end of the day I had pain shooting up & down my IT band.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better!  Also I have one toenail that is starting to turn black and I fear I will lose it before long!  Sonya is doing better, with just a few blisters.

Once we arrived at our apartment and checked in we relaxed our feet in the Caldas de Reis hot springs!

After a pop-up craft beer festival and hot springs I'm looking forward to what we'll find tomorrow when we get to Padron!

Day 4, 0 km in Pontavedra

We had a nice day off today!  We did a bit of walking around, so it wasn't 0 km, but actually about 2 or 3, but without carrying a pack and at our leisurely "vacation pace" it felt like zero.

We collected a couple of stamps for our "pilgrim passport":

Because we're just walking a bit over 100 km, we have to collect 2 stamps per day in order to get our certificate at the end of the Camino and be "accepted by God".  Today we got stamps at a church and a restaurant, but we've collected them from shops, albergues, and even random people who have setup stops along the route.

And guess what we happened to run into in our 1 day break in some random town in Galicia province - a craft beer festival!!!

I have to point out my "dinner jacket".  I only made 3 purchases for this trip.  One thing I needed was a light coat or jacket to wear in case of cold weather, so I thought "what would my Mom do?", and I ended up picking up a nice flannel shirt at Value Village.  Sonya jokingly calls it a "dinner jacket", but at the same time she says I look like a homeless person.

(PS my other 2 purchases were a collapsible knapsack from Eddie Bower (folds up into a little pocket, we use it as a day pack) and some double-layer socks from The Running Room.)

It's raining a bit tonight, but we're hoping it clears up in the morning when we hit the road again at the crack of 8:30am sharp!

Some eye bleach, in case you ever need it

Day 3 Redondela to Pontavedra 22 km

Could be 22 km, not completely sure, however we do know that this was our longest day so far by far.  We arrived in Pontavedra looking forward to a nice lunch, around 4:35 just after all the restaurants had closed! (Restaurants here all close between 4:30 and 7 or 8pm)  So, we figure that for the rest of our walking days (we booked a day off thankfully!) we will need to start out a bit earlier in the AM.

We also arrived at our Pontavedra apartment which turned out to be on the 3rd floor (which is actually on the 4th floor since all buildings here start at floor zero).  Nice to stretch our legs up 4 flights of stairs after a brisk 22 km hike!

Leaving Redondela, uphill on cobblestones.  We have a new swear word, "Cobblestones!!!"

People have setup these vending machines at random locations along the route, selling candy bars, pop etc.  This one is a wifi hotspot!

Random walking shot.

Some kind of memorial to pilgrims.  We all carry scallop shells for some reason, we only just picked ours up today.

Nice view!  Downside was that we had to hike up a big hill :-(

We had one short stretch along a major highway.  Most of the cars slowed down and/or pulled over while passing us.

Crossing an old bridge.

A pop-up coffee shop in the middle of nowhere.

Downhill at last!

We took a detour through the woods, which was very nice and gave us some shade!

Arriving in Pontavedra!

Our apartment is just above Marilyn Monroe's shop (well at least it was named after her).  Sonya is window shopping, since the store (like all the restaurants) was closed when we arrived.

Day 2, O Porrino to Rendondela, 16 km

It's hard to know how far we have walked each day, because all the books and maps have different distances on them, so we just pick the biggest numbers :-D  Although we know, from the frequent Camino markers, that we will have walked 120 km total by the time we reach Santiago.

Today we left O Porrino and walked to Rendondela.  It was a slightly shorter walk, and we took more frequent breaks (5 minutes every hour or so, or actually whenever we felt like it!)

Leaving O Porrino in the morning, at the crack of 10:30 am

100 km to go!  These markers are all along the Camino, every 300 or 300 m or so.  They mark out the distance to Santiago - 102,660 km; 102,440 km; 102,360 km; etc ...  you get the point.  You try to avoid looking at them because they count down the distance so annoyingly slowly!  Someone has pried out the actual distance marker from this one, so they spray painted it on.

Grape vines.  Those are granite columns holding up the vines.

Up hill!!!

Taking a break ...

A view of Rendondela in the distance.

Downhill!

... and the final walk into town.

And for everyone who was wondering, I wonder what kind of chips you can get in Galicia Spain?

Of course, Iberian ham.