Day Three- Portomarin to Ventas de Naron, 12.6kms, more of a laid back day, took almost 5 hours, steady climb from 388 metres to 705 metres.
We took a little longer today, stopped more for breaks at little restaurants along the trail and stopped a couple of times to visit other folks that we meet at least once per day. A nice couple from Belgium.
Beer time!
We are staying at the smallest village we ever stayed at! It has a population of 20, two or three little hotels or hostels and two restaurants/bars. Sounds like two, maybe three families own all of the village including the farms. So we thought, if we get up and hustle, we will be there by noon and then spend the rest of the day looking out the window at the dairy cows!
I am so glad that I joined the girls on this trip. So far it has been a pleasant and wonderful hike. The girls do get out in front of me at times, but I always manage to catch up.
Come on Dad, you can do it!
The day started climbing up through forest and when it finally flattened out we were back into farmland. Mostly forage land, seems like it is all grass with very little sign of any legumes. They are already laying down the first cut, so probably even ahead of the Fraser Valley.
Nice looking hay.
Walking through a village.
We took one side trip, to an archaeological site of an ancient settlement of five hectares (one of the most important archeological sites in northwestern Spain). The site consists of enclosures that includes pits, walls, moats and parapets. The site was occupied by at least three different groups, the last being the start of the Roman occupation of Galacia, so it is very old.
That’s me, standing in wonderment at the smallness of these different enclosures.
Well that’s it for today. Onward again in the morning, we even get to sleep in an extra thirty minutes.
Day Four- Ventas de Naron to Palas de Rei, 12kms, 4 hours, drop today from 704 metres to 550 metres.
The place we stayed was wonderful, hotel, hostel and restaurant ran by a mother and her two daughters. There were also husband’s around, but I am pretty sure the ladies ran the place.
Our goal is doing one kilometre every 15 minutes, but Keenan felt energized this morning and had us on a ten minute kilometre for a bit. We manage to meet some of the same people on the trail every day and have a bit of a visit and Keenan does make new friends so we turned our 12kms into a four hour walk to day.
The day consisted of trees, farms and a few small villages. Nothing was open for the total of the 12kms, but we did manage to see some new sites.
This area has a lot of eucalyptus plantations.
And of course more farms
I have seen hydro trucks blocking main access roads while fixing a power outage problem, but this is the first time to see a self loading logging truck taking up most of the road while loading logs roadside. Not sure how the school bus would get past!
Made it to Palas de Rei, here at 1PM, but can’t check in until 3PM so just kind of wandered around. Finally the hotel manager got in touch and opened the door for us. This all done remotely, no one was at the hotel. Lovely big hotel, lots of rooms, but not another person there, neither staff or other guests. See what happens tomorrow for breakfast.
Day Five- Palas de Rei to Melide 15kms, 5.25 hours, drop today from 550metres to maybe 457metres.
It started out as a pick’em up and set’em down day. We hit the road at 9:15 and when we got to the main trail there was a group of about 30 students hiking down the other side of the street, very noisy as teenagers are. Well there was no way the girls where going to stay behind them so off we go to get in front, success but then there is another group on the sidewalk in front of us. Down on the street and away we go again, Loreen had us in overdrive. Beat our 15 minute per kilometre by 12 minutes for the first 4kms.
Country side is still beautiful, lots of farms, churches, villages and animals. I could continue to fill up the blog with more pictures of cute animals and villages etc, but I think I will do a switch and talk a little bit about the Camino de Santiago. We did lots of up a hill and the down a hill only to go right up the next one.
The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrim path also known as The Way of Saint James. There is a network of pilgrim paths from France, Spain and Portugal that pilgrims, hikers and others take to get to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where St.James is buried. St. James brought his ministry to this part of Spain to preach to the patrons. It seems he was not that successful and when he returned to Jerusalem he was beheaded by Herod. His disciples brought his body back to this area and buried him at Santiago.
There are many different pilgrim paths from different origins to get to Santiago, the one we are on is called the French Way, as it starts in France and is 800kms long. We are doing the last 115kms over 9 days. Lots of people are walking 25 to 30kms per day, but there are lots like us that are taking it slower.
Pilgrims have been coming to Santiago de Compostela for centuries as a spiritual purpose. This pilgrim journey was declared as one of the three great pilgrimages of the Christian world in 1492 by Pope Alexander VI.
It was declared a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe in 1987 and parts of the different path made UNESCO Heritage sites in 1993, 1998 and 2015.
Today there are around 200,000 pilgrims/hikers that make the journey to Santiago de Compostela by the different paths annually. The paths, at least the one we are on are well marked with concrete markers that have a replica of a shell, an arrow pointing the way and the mileage left to get to Santiago on it.
One can register to receive an official Compostela certificate at the end of your pilgrimage/journey. You are expected to have a spiritual or self filling purpose to embark on one of the paths. This pilgrim journey has been on Loreen’s bucket list for a long time and Keenan joined to support her. I came along because I didn’t want to be home alone!
You have to walk at least 100kms or bike 200kms. You are issued a Pilgrims Passport at your starting point and you must obtain a minimum of two passport stamps per day of your walk. Stamps are available at churches, places you stay overnight, most restaurants and coffee shops along the route. Churches like a donation but there is not always a donation box nor an attendant. So far I think we are averaging 3 stamps per day.
Well that’s enough on the Way of St James.
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