Walked: 22.49km (157.91km) | 5h15m (33h54m)
Followed: 0km|48.7km (1h20m)
A long walk today – 5h15m – but we made it without resorting to Plan B which would have been take the train. Jane insists that this is the picture of the day so it’s the first up. I’m obsessed by the clarity of the rivers here and the fact that you can see fish. Lots of fish.
We had breakfast eating our room, as today was to be the longest stage yet. It was a walk of two halves. As we left Redondela, a small, pretty town cross-crossed by overhead viaducts, we took on several steep climbs.
First through the old town, then semi-rural suburbs and vegetable gardens, then a very steep climb into the woodland with great views across the Ría de Vigo…
It was cloudy, and not too hot, and we stopped on a stone cold picnic bench for a snack. There are notably more pilgrims: usually a group of three or four in sight, in front and behind.
We think that’s because two branches of the Camino join in Redondela and more people join the trail the closer you get to Santiago.
The first half ended with a steep descent into Acarde where we stopped for a coffee at a perfectly placed Albergue.
The two halves were linked by a nice walk through Arcade across a medieval bridge and up through narrow lanes.
And, you’ve guessed it, the river water was totally clear a full of fish (zoom in).
The second half of the stage was a woodland walk alongside a bubbling brook which took us all the way to the edge of Pontevedra. The start of this stage was marked by a road crossing and this bit of pilgrim humour.
The route was much flatter and shady although some of it rocky underfoot, or traversed by thick tree roots. The following picture shows a rare bit of flat walking surface.
Most of it was winding dirt trails and in most places you had to watch your footing so as not to trip on exposed tree roots. Taking a breather on a rocky climb, we were caught up by Adrian Two-Bags, our Kiwi acquaintance from yesterday. He’d started much later, but still managed to catch up with the throng. We were soon chatting and bowling along at Adrian speed, and covered most of the walk before lunch. We took the river walk diversion towards Pontevedra and found a quiet fallen tree by the waterside to eat our picnic.
As we left the wooded stream, we came out into the built up area of Pontevedra, and soon turned off the Camino route to find our accommodation in the old part of town. On the way to our accommodation we passed an elusive post box where Jane posted postcards to the grandchildren to check that they are OK and their parents are behaving themselves.
As you can see, we both dress for heat/sun; it’s very easy to burn, even in cloudy weather, and we have seen some painfully prune-coloured pilgrims!
We found our Pension easily. It’s in a lovely location, right by the ancient Iglesias y Convento de Santa Clara. But once inside you wouldn’t know it! The rooms are all very 1950s and look out onto blank walls and pipe work! Still, the hosts are charming and spent a long time advising us where to go and what to do. Having a lie down was top of Jane’s list!
After a rest, we popped into the (free) museum this evening. The quantity and range of artworks was overwhelming, but the archeological section was fascinating. There were artefacts from the Iron and Bronze Age to Roman times. The most striking were hoards of weapons and axe heads made locally and this, one of many gold hoards found throughout the area, displaying the kind of wealth you can imagine in such a well-placed area for food, water, shelter, minerals and easily guarded landscapes.
Old Pontevedra is full of little squares and tapas bars, and tonight we went for a blow out, trying grilled octopus, croquettes, scallops, salmon salad and pistachio cheese cake.
We now have about 65km to go and three walking days left. Our destination tomorrow is Caldas de Reis, which is another 21km stretch but there’s a “must do” 1.5km diversion to the Barosa Falls which we’d like to find. But it’s going to be even hotter than today, so we are planning on a pre-breakfast start.
