We like Santiago de Compostela. We’ll be seeing it again, of course. We were only here briefly on this pass, but will be spending two nights here at the end of the walk. It’s a lot less hectic than Barcelona and Madrid and mostly finished. We got a very warm reception at our hotel last night (Mexico PR). It was very comfortable, peaceful, at least three times the size of the rooms we’ve been in on previous nights and about a third of the price.
Only two short-ish train journeys today but we did cross an international border into Portugal. Before we do that we will be spending half a day in Vigo…
Two trains to Vigo, minutes apart, and it would have been all to easy to get on the wrong one; the intercity fast train. But we’d reserved on the local line – and the helpful guy in the Renfe office put us on the right track (literally!) and printed out our tickets. A very good back up when our phones got close to empty later on!
On arrival in Vigo it was raining. Time for Jane to test her pack-away poncho.
It worked! By the time she’d found it, unpacked it and put it on, the rain had stopped.
We walked 12km in Vigo without trying so that was good practice. There were some steep hills too. The most significant was the climb up to Castelo do Castro with amazing, all-round panoramic views of the city and estuary.
Lots of history surrounds this fortified hill – shame the museum was closed Mondays. But there were lots of plaques to read. The Spanish helped the Scots to invade England … and took a bad defeat at this fort when the Empire struck back. Who knew?
On the final leg of our outward train journey there was a replacement bus service from Vigo to Valenca (Portugal). Then we got on the train for the last three stops into Porto…
We arrived in Porto with its amazing entrance hall.
One thing is clear. There is a competition going on between the French, Spanish and Portuguese about who does the best graffiti and I think the Portuguese have the edge.
Today we’ve spent a total of about 4 hours on train/replacement bus to do the trip it’s going to take us at least 13 days to walk.
