Walked: 23.59km (181.50km) | 4h46m (38h40m)
Followed: 0km|48.7km (1h20m)
We’re getting the hang of this. We were walking by 8:15 this morning and had covered 5km before breakfast despite this distraction as we were leaving Pontevedra.
It’s my turn for picture of the day so here it is.
Although this was another strong contender (zoom in).
Although today’s walk was the longest to date the majority of it was through woodland and so shaded.
The numbers of pilgrims has increased a lot as you can see from these pictures. Lord knows what it’s like in peak season.
We enjoyed crossing many streams and had the constant accompaniment of the sound of water for long stretches. The path did cross a main road a couple of times and this railway once.
A highlight of today, which 95% of the walkers missed, was the Fervenzas do Barosa (a waterfall) which was about 6-700m off the Camino and was not obviously signposted. Jane had read about it during planning, and our Pension host insisted we should go. He alerted us that the start of the diversion to it was through a car park so it wasn’t obvious at all.
It was an amazing setting, not quite captured in a photo. On arrival here we jettisoned the idea of a packed lunch and sat at this bar and had a tomato and cheese salad and a zero beer. There were loos too! A couple of daring bathers stripped off and got in. Jane was tempted but was assured by one brave siren that it was “muy fria”.
After the falls the path opened up through agricultural land, and there was little shade but at this point we only had about 7km to go.
Of course Jane was prepared for the “no shade scenario” and modified her attire, on the move, accordingly.
One thing I’ve noticed is that in Galicia they use granite posts everywhere. Where we would use a useless treated pine post that rots off within five years, they use granite, that lasts centuries!
And I mean everywhere. Horizontally trained vines are also a feature and they are held up by granite posts too.
After nearly 5 hours of walking we arrived at our accommodation. We’d gone a bit up market for this stage. Caldas de Reis is famous for its hot springs, and Jane had booked a hotel with swimming pool and spa thinking that we’d need a bit of TLC and foot soaking at this point, but as it happens we’re OK! The pool was really warm, and fed by a hot sulphurous geezer that you could hardly sit near. Best pool ever, in Jane’s estimation. She’d also booked us into a balneario- a feature of the hotel, which also offered a lot of massage and wellness treatments. The balneario is basically a granite enclosed hot room filled with a huge plunge pool fed by the springs. It’s like a giant dark indoor jacuzzi on steroids, with underwater lighting, powerful underwater jets and waterspouts that pummel you from above. Not my cup of tea at all – though I did last about ten minutes. I left Jane in there and doubted she’d ever emerge. She did eventually. She claimed to be very relaxed; like a massage. She was certainly very clean!
We had a great meal of tapas in a local bar in the old town and met a couple of fellow pilgrims, whose retirement hobby was taking out care home residents in rickshaw bikes -a charity called Cycling with Age. There’s one in Chichester so we promised to look into it … as volunteers, not as passengers just yet! Although who knows how we’ll be after the last stage? We’ve decided to get on the road early again in the morning as it’s going to be another very sunny day, although it’s under 20km and not too steep. But the last one is our longest: 25km to get to Santiago.
