A freshman group from the University of Edinburgh filled the bus this morning, but their overseers were organized, their packs were loaded on one side of the cargo hold, and those few other of us older bus riders survived. They do this with freshman groups at the universities in Spain also – they go on a multi-day hike together seemingly to facilitate group cohesion.
That’s me on the left…
We passed a view across Loch Lomond of the Rowardennan Lodge (hostel) where I’d stayed in 2019. I won’t likely pass this way again, so it was good to see it.
Preparing to get off at the Drovers Inn in Inverarnen (where I stayed last time and have lovely memories of), I moved to a seat next to a local woman from Ballachulish on her way home from an appointment in the city. She said that Glencoe itself (not on the West Highland Way proper) was the most beautiful area in Scotland. Finding it unimaginable that anything could be more beautiful than the scenery around Kingshouse, I may trust what now several have said and go that way on the 17th. The bus driver (no small amount of skill required to drive these huge Citybuses on the winding and narrow A82 at the top of Loch Lomond) told me that the Drovers Inn was his favorite pub (“Best Scottish Pub of the Year 1705”). I agree. I have the T-shirt and wear it frequently at home in the States in the mountain community where I now live, which has Scottish ties.
This woman on the bus and I had a somewhat strategic exchange about women’s safety when traveling alone. Many people initiate this conversation, and although sometimes I find it annoying, I’ve grown used to accommodating it as long as the person’s tone isn’t advisory or judgy. She was diplomatic about bringing it up and seemed a kind person, so we shared some thoughts. Of course it is not entirely safe to travel alone while female. But there are numerous smart things one can do to minimize problems. And good radar helps, facilitated by many years of working in inpatient psychiatry and ortho/neuro trauma nursing. I can usually spot problem people a mile away and have some deterrents and strategies that don’t completely guarantee safety (none do), but which go a long way toward having a plan to manage potential problems.
There were several female or male and female twosomes, and also 2 solo males who either got off our bus or were heading out in the morning from Inverarnan, so I decided it wasn’t necessary to stop for coffee to avoid potential problems. Although we all quickly dispersed according to pace and rest stops, they were a good loose group to be among, and most seem to be staying in Tyndrum tonight.
The 12 miles seems very long due to frequent rocky ups and downs, and it takes roughly 5 hours. There are panoramas of the mountains from about halfway between Inverarnan and Crianlarich, and some lovely forest walking after Crianlarich. And some rock fields overlooking the mountains at which to stop.
After the day’s hike, I’m at the Tyndrum Lodges, and there could be no better antidote to what goes on at a place like the oh-so hip and trendy CitizenM than here. Once silliness is put aside, what’s needed is a 30-second check-in by the proprietress, clear and simple instructions, a simple, comfortable, and clean room (enough room to do yoga, laundry, reorganize, get on the internet and relax) in a little roadside village off the A82. Add a filling meal at the no-fuss eatery up the road, a quiet rest, and all is well.
Tomorrow I’ll catch the same CityLink bus to Bridge of Orchy to shorten the 19 mile day and walk the most beautiful part of this trail. More soon, and thanks for stopping by:0)).
Madrid’s Puerta de Atocha train station, the original part.
It’s been a bit of a crash-landing to be back in the States again. Think I’ll go home and shut the door for awhile…..
By Buen Retiró Park, MadridCalle Atocha entrance to Plaza Mayor, Madrid
The trip from Santiago to Madrid started with a 12 block walk in the dark down Rua do Hórreo to the train station. It was my good luck to have a seat assignment with a Canadian schoolteacher from Toronto who had just done the Sarria to Santiago 112 km, and the time passed quickly.
At the Prado, Madrid
At Madrid’s Museo Prado (Velasquez, Goya, Titian, etc – the 20th century art is at the nearby Museo Reina Sofia), I scoured the entire museum looking for Goya’s “Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (AKA that cool tattoo on Liz’s upper right arm)………ending up Googling and realizing that it’s at the Met in New York, for Pete’s sake (who is Pete, anyway?). They had a room of Goya’s works from his strange “black period”.
Far Home Atocha (hostal) is about 10 blocks from Puerta de Atocha train/metro/cercanias station and on your way to the Plaza Mayor. It’s a pleasant, affordable hostal with an inexplicable science theme. The very nice young Spaniard working there spoke great English because he’d studied in Utah. I asked him if he were a Mormon because I wanted to see him smile.
Plaza Mayor, Madrid
It seems I’m doing a tour of the gyms of Scotland and Spain this summer. Madrid’s possibility was under two blocks from the hostal (the very orange “Basic-Fit Atocha”). They’re friendly, helpful, and don’t clean everything off there either. And nobody died that I heard about.
Madrid’s Royal Palace
Madrid’s Al Ándalus Hammam was a pleasant way of passing the hours before going out to the airport. I’ve been to hammams in Germany and France also and always enjoy them, although it’s usually confusing to understand how they want you to proceed through the series of rooms and treatments without good language proficiency. And they let you leave your clothes on at this one…….
At the Norwegian check-in at Madrid Barajas, the usual airlines ground employees circulated in the line making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be, asking the baggage security questions, checking passports and, most importantly, engaging you seemingly to spot those who might become problems on their flights, which is very smart and appreciated. The young lady who approached me had good English and asked how long I’d been in Spain and what I’d been doing while she was clearly evaluating me. She asked questions about the Caminos I’d done and concluded by saying she hoped I’d met enough people on the trail to come back and do the next Camino with others, completely ignoring poor Gregory as if he didn’t count………
Gazpacho, Breakfast of Champions, Madrid
Here’s something that was said to me that no airline employee has ever said to me before: “Please don’t hug me” (for the record, it hadn’t occurred to me to hug him, but he HAD made my night a better one). When I checked in for my cheap, arranged-from-the-trail, one-way Norwegian flight, all was in order. The check-in desk told me it was ok to take Gregory on board with me – despite that he has grown even more rotund. So we went to the security/TSA line together, forgetting until getting flagged that he was carrying the pepper spray. Uncharacteristically, I kept my mouth shut and it turned out that what was of concern was only my hiking pole and some food for the flight…….
At boarding time, I was flagged again with a red flashing light on scanning my ticket. But to my surprise, I’d been flagged for a kiss and not a slap. They’d “overbooked” and I’d been moved to Premium (and hence “Please don’t hug me”), so now I know what an 8.5 hour flight is like NOT in cattle class (SO much better…..). I’ve flown with them quite a few times now, and once it’s understood how they do things, they’re a great airline to use.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the Spanish language edition
Upon landing, there was the usual JFK mess. At passport control, there was the usual jammed hoard in the hall who had already been waiting for a long time, and an announcement saying that there was “no more room for US citizens” in reference to the processing rooms being filled beyond capacity. Which seemed a statement of more truth than was intended.
My home gym had left a voicemail while I was on Airplane Mode – they’d noticed that I hadn’t been around for over a month and said they missed me and wondered where I was. When I went in today, there was a card with very sweet messages from the staff and a Planet Fitness mug they’d decorated and put my name on. I missed them too.
My gratitude to family and friends who left kind emails and texts and to all those who helped in so many ways. I met such fantastic people – Mick, Tatiana (who just finished her Costa de la Morta hike solo), Paco Que Tenga Un Buen Dia, the Toronto schoolteacher, Kristina, the Italians (every one of them except maybe a few cyclists who needed their tires flattened), all the fellow-hikers who kept up such a friendly and positive camaraderie, all the lodging and eatery staff, and even the 30-something guy passing by in Madrid who smiled, whistled, smiled again and kept on walking. It was a really good trip.
Even so, I may have had enough of traveling for awhile. Which I’ll say to Tom when he comes to pick me up at the train station. To which he’ll smile and wait, just like he always does. It usually takes about two weeks…..
Today I spent the day roaming twisty streets in an 800 year old city with an interesting history. One of the best ways to spend a day, in my opinion. And just because it’s a shame to waste an opportunity to try something very different, I bought a pulpo (octopus) empañada. Galicia is known for its pulpo. I guess I’m going to have to actually EAT it later on….
After a failed attempt to go to the gym (I didn’t see that little sign above the Horarios that said – of course – that they were closed on Sundays in July and August), I gave up on getting a real workout. Too bad, because I ate a humongous portion of “Rosca” from Colmado overnight. At Colmado they say they are the exclusive makers of this version. It’s bread stuffed with savory ingredients – sometimes ham and green olives and sometimes, like last night’s, steak in a sweet sauce. They use fresh fennel in both, and enough to make a delicious difference in what otherwise might taste ordinary. There’s a spice shop nearby that sells all kinds of fresh spices from barrels. Passing by (or better yet, going in) either shop is a pleasure.
Here are some images of Casa Douro, which I would recommend highly for a pleasant, reasonably-priced habitación with shared bathroom in a well-set up and friendly hostal. I met some people here from Ottowa and Lebanon this morning while in the common rooms using the WiFi and had a pleasant conversation with them. A relief to speak comfortable English.
The image below is from the Capilla de Animas in Santiago, which I’d thought meant chapel of the soul. The image appears to be 9 people burning in flames. I looked up “animas” to be sure I understood the word correctly, but Google says that “animas”, in both Spanish and Galician, means “cheer”, “to cheer up”, “to animate”. How are 9 people suffering the flames of Hell going to be cheered up? Clearly I’m missing something…..
Because I live in a small town in the foothills of the Alleghenies now, and buy very few new clothes, when in a place like Santiago de Compostela I make use of the surprisingly affordable boutique shops. At least that’s the rationale I use for buying some pretty things that I don’t especially need. This morning, I went out in my new (un-ironed) boho skirt with leggings, Glasgow hoodie, hiking shoes and daypack. Because I like that homeless bag lady look.
Although the internet says that there are pilgrims’ masses at 12:00 and 19:30, the entire interior of the cathedral is scaffolded and draped at the moment. There are no pews at all in there right now, and none of the side-chapels are uncovered, so mass wasn’t possible this time. But I saw the botafumiero swing last time, and to me, the idea of attending is to sit somewhere in peace where a deeper sense of beauty and reverence and respect is facilitated by all that conspires there to bring it about. That can be done in other ways.
I passed a nun in a quiet passageway. I smiled first and received a beautiful one in return.
Below is a banner that I like very much for its quirkiness. It hangs in front of the cafe Cervantes near Praza do Cervantes where yesterday there was a guitar and violin duo playing. Sometimes there is a bookseller market held on this plaza, and in the center of the Plaza is a tall pedestal with a statue of Cervantes. It’s on the hikers’ route coming into town on the way to their journey’s end at the Cathedral.
And a street performer who’s here every year amazing those on Praza Obradoiro.
Last night I went to Bierzo Enxebre for the yearly bowl of their gazpacho. SOMEBODY forgot to put on the drizzle of balsamic reduction. How’s THAT for a first-world problem?
And today Damajuana was serving at noon, so again I was able to have their fantastic grilled goats cheese, grilled vegetable and roasted nut salad served with rustic bread and a light balsamic vinaigrette.
I managed to get a few more cafe con leches in during periods of heavy rain. And made my way back to this little hostal through the arcades, mostly avoiding the deluge. Good thing Gregory stayed back at the hostal, or he would have been whining about THAT.
Taking an evening walk around to “say goodbye” for this year and work off some calories, the locals were out en promenade in Alameda Park.
Alameda ParkGazebo, Alameda ParkScallop Shell, symbol of the Caminos to Santiago de Compostela because hundreds of years ago, a pilgrim would bring a shell back to attest to his (usually only his) having made the journey. Of course, then they had to walk back home……
For the record, it’s not always a good idea to make use of opportunities to try something new. The pulpo empañada was squarely inedible and had to be pitched. It tasted as if it had been sitting in that shop window in the sun for a year (and probably had been because who in their right mind would order THAT???). If I don’t develop food poisoning in a few hours, I’ll consider myself very lucky.
It’s still cold here, as it always seems to be. But Madrid will be 85F tomorrow. I just have to get up at 03:25 to catch the train….
Unless you would wash your clothes in a toilet. Then, by all means, do it.
You know what they’re for. It just seems like they should have a more useful purpose for all the space they take up in the bathrooms of Europe. Sometimes young people use them to ice down bottles of wine…..like a champagne bucket, right? Which sounds not far from drinking out of the toilet to me, but my cat does it all the time and he’s really healthy…..
The stationmaster was there at the station in Sarria when I got there at 8 a.m. and he responded that I’d understood the platform and direction of the train correctly. At the last minute, the platform number was changed, but he came out and told the 3 of us waiting where to move to. There were two guys with huge musical instruments in cases who promptly jumped down onto the tracks and back up onto the next platform – the shortcut – but when I started to do the same, the station master directed me to a distant walkway to cross. The Chica crossing, evidently. Or maybe he didn’t know that the hiking skirt I had on has shorts underneath. But I’m glad that he came out and helped us, because NOT making it to Santiago today was not an option. My cheap hotel for the 10th and the 11th isn’t available for the 9th, so I’ve booked at a central historic hotel for far less than I’d pay for a night at a Hampton Inn in the States. But it’s a really chi-chi place. And it’s my birthday.
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Interesting history, a good museum with access to the roof for closeup looks at the different towers, artifacts, and eye-popping interior with many side-chapels
When I got to Santiago, everything became easy again. I know my way around well, and even found a gym with day passes for 5 Euro/day. There was a manager who spoke great English, and in under two minutes I was in the locker room ready to go. No fancy security doors. No lengthy, complicated computer registration. Just a friendly guy pointing out where things were and saying “don’t worry about paying now. You can just drop it off on your way out”. Then a very sweet, very large, very muscled out, very tatted up guy brought me a mat when he saw I was doing without one (something unlikely to happen anywhere at a gym where I live……). But it’s not that easy to work out in flip flops. And like in Scotland, nobody wipes down anything. And no one seems the worse for it.
The bad news is that at this age, not going to the gym for 20 days takes a real toll. Even if you’re hiking 20-28 km/day with a 20 pound backpack. Hopefully correctable.
At the Grocery Store
I hit a grocery and a Panaderia so tonight won’t have to sit in a cafe. It’s blasted cold here while in Madrid it’s in the mid- eighties.
Sometimes, like in the movies, a journey ends as it began. In this case, just like at the start of this in Leon, there was a huge windstorm and then torrential rains this afternoon. But Santiago is especially beautiful in the rain.
A shoe store more like a confectionery.
The TV has a documentary channel in English, but there was a problem with an error saying “no signal” (sin señal). Desperate to listen to a channel in English, I went down to the desk at this lovely hotel to ask how to fix it and found ….. a BRIT. A Brit who actually had very specific instructions for fixing the problem in about 5 steps…..that actually worked.
Favorite Panaderia on Rua Preguntoiro
So I did an initial sweep of the twisty streets and went into the beautiful church on Praza da Universidade that always has interesting art exhibits. This time photography. The streets are teeming with happy people. Here are some pictures from this year’s visit.
Street Performer, Praza do Platerías (silversmiths)Photography Exhibit
Excellent museum about the worldwide history of pilgrimage as a transformative experience.
San Paio de Antealtares, 13 year old saint martyred by beheading. Spain has some rather graphic religious art….
The huge Praza Obradoiro, or workshop plaza where stonecarvers and other tradesmen worked for centuries in front of the expanding cathedral. Where all the Pilgrimage routes to Santiago end. Sometimes over a thousand complete in a day and go to the Pilgrim’s office with their credentials as proof of where they’ve been walking….to get their Compostela, a certificate written in Latin attesting to the completion of the journey.
I’m considering trying out the bidet to do something novel on my birthday. I’ll let you know how it goes. (No I won’t…..).
The first whisper about them came from Kristina, who I first met not far out of Foncebadon. Upon running into her again in La Faba, where she was waiting for the German Confraternity Albergue to open, she tried to tell me that there was a group of 50 of them (FIFTY, she said with some incredulousness) nearby on the Camino Frances. “Have you seen them?”, she asked. She has a thick German accent and isn’t fluent in English (but a far cry better than I am in German!), and I thought she’d said that there are 50 Christians nearby on the Camino……Groups often spread out while hiking, I wasn’t sure that 50 Christians would look any different than anyone else, and, after all, the pilgrimage/Crusades routes DO have a significant link to Christianity. I said no, I hadn’t seen them.
Alto de San Roque
I couldn’t get a litera/bunk at the albergue in La Laguna de Castilla that night, and was sorry to hear that they were completo because had stayed there years ago and really liked it. When I passed through on the climb to O Cebreiro (“La Laguna” is just a small stone compound clinging to the side of the mountain that the trail passes through), there were people spilling out of the bar and all over the patio enjoying draft beers and the mountain views. Must be The Christians, I thought.
Then shortly after leaving O Cebreiro at sunrise, there they were at the water fountain in Linares with their massive tour bus running as they filled their bottles for the day. The bus said something about Croatia on its side, so at that point I realized that there was a translation problem, and that they had all actually loaded onto a bus and ridden from Croatia to walk this part of the Camino Frances. I’d find being squeezed onto a bus with 50 others all the way to and from Croatia to and from Western Spain a lot more difficult than hiking a measly 800 hundred kilometers, yet there they were. (Edit: A few days later, Mick sent a link and as it turns out, many were Slovenian, and they’d actually WALKED, with bus support, 3,500 km from home, which probably means they came through some of the European Peace Walk route, crossed Italy and maybe came across on the Arles route or the Le Puy via Geneva through France. Impressive).
Modern Crusading…….
The day between O Cebreiro and Triacastela has some spectacular panoramic views. I remember the sense of freedom from last time through when I’d had coffee along the way at a bar (a “bar” is a cafe in Spain) with a woman from New Zealand whose hiking partner had developed an injury. We had such a good conversation that I missed her this time. Whereas several years ago there were numerous people from English-speaking countries, I haven’t seen any at all since Pola de Lena on the San Salvador. What happened?
At Padornelo, be sure to ring the bell. Just for fun. It’s on a chain down the side of a stone chapel and sounds much like and only slightly louder than the surrounding cowbells.
At Aira do Camino in Fillobal you can get a great bowl of gazpacho and enjoy talking to the delightful and funny woman who runs it (most of the small businesses in Spain seem to be run by one or two staff). She asked me in Spanish if I knew that gazpacho is sopa fría, perhaps because it’s not known that gazpacho is everywhere. It’s a trendy, “design” cafe in Fillobal, and in typical Galician fashion, there may not actually BE any other buildings in what’s on the map as Fillobal. Often, a name is on the map, but where you’re expecting at least a tiny village, it’s just a turn in the road between a few stone barns housing cows (this part of Galicia is dairy farming country) who leave behind an enormous amount of cowshit that you, as a hiker, will (hopefully) be navigating around on much of this stage. One morning passing by a barn immediately ON the trail whose window was open, I stuck my head in and said Bonjour to a thick crowd of cows. To my surprise and embarrassment, a man who was underneath milking a cow popped up to say “buenos días”. Americans…..we’re not the most sophisticated travelers……
There at Aira do Camino, I was sitting next to a young Asian girl and several others at the bar having lunch when two bicigrinos (some of them bici-terrorists to caminantes) came in and loudly announced in English that “THE CROATIANS ARE COMING”. I asked if he meant all 50 of them passing THROUGH, or were they coming HERE, as felt sorry for the friendly young woman behind the counter. He assured me that yes, they would all be descending on the cafe shortly. The young woman behind the counter didn’t have much English, but someone translated and she took it with a surprising amount of grace. I wished her Buena suerte on the way out, and she laughed. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer. It’s sometimes a lot of fun.
Last night was a stay at Complexo Xacobea, a few trendy buildings that house a busy Albergue, habitaciones, and a few meters up the road, a good affiliated cafe/restaurant, La Paradilla, or, The Parachute. I registered around 2 pm and the young man at the desk noticed that it would be my birthday in 2 days. For those here by the tag and planning a first Camino, you will be asked for your passport at registration. My understanding is that it’s a law and that the identity information on visitors passing through is submitted to the local police every evening as a way of knowing who’s in town. I’m all for it if it keeps hikers safer. When the young man showed me to my room and I oohed and ahhh’d at how nice it was, he said in broken English that it was his best room, seemingly related to my upcoming birthday.
Another good thing about this place: they have lavadoras y secadoras, washers and dryers. Since I started noticing the typical welts on one side with several puncture marks in a row (on the side that I often sleep on, and under areas covered by clothes during the hiking day), I realized that I’d been bitten by bedbugs. I hadn’t been using my Permethrined bag liner unless in dorms/albergues. In truth, these things can be anywhere. If you want more information about detecting and preventing them, Cornell has a good teaching post online. So, I spent most of the late afternoon hot-washing and hot-drying everything that was fabric and blow-drying the hell out of everything that wasn’t, including Gregory, who was none too happy about it.
When the rain started yesterday and I was helping Gregory on with his raincoat – which has his name on it like a kindergartener who might lose his/her belongings – it occurred to me that all this time on the Frances Route, I could have sent him ahead with a van service which transports other hiking companions who have become burdensome. He might have liked being among those of his own kind, but I would have missed him (I frequently feel attached to him), and I remember the one time I sent his predecessor ahead (a much-loved 50 liter Asoló Elle with an additional 5 liter brain – now held together with safety pins). She was lost for hours by the service well into the evening, leaving me without the important things she was carrying. I thought I’d lost her forever, but eventually got her back with the help of the kind proprietress of the Albergue turistique in Salceda.
On the way out of Triacastela today and on the way up to Alto de Poio, I passed a very large, very loud, overly-energetic guy in avid conversation with two young females. He seemed to be one of the Croatians. One of them who had stopped taking his anti-manic meds, I’d suspect. He loudly greeted me as I passed with “HOLA, SENORITA!!!”. I am clearly an older woman……Usually the Spanish teenagers call me “La Senora” on these hikes in Spain, and the restaurant and hotel staff usually refer to me as “La Chica”, which I like (There are a number of females hiking alone in this cohort, and the men have been wonderful. I’ve had none of the problems – so far – that I had on the first two of 7 or so Caminos). So, as we’re almost at the peak, this young, overly-energetic man starts loudly singing Sting’s “I’ll Be Watching You”…..in what sounds like an Eastern-European language. By the time we got to the top, people were videotaping him as he bounded past other walkers up the hill – others who joined in singing along with him in Croatian. The scenic cafe at the summit had a crowd waiting to order 5 deep across the whole bar. I continued to Fonfria.
Scallop shell design in metalwork of river walk. The symbol of the way to Santiago, explained elsewhere in this blog. Sarria.
In Fonfria, I google-translated with the woman behind the bar that I’d stayed with them years ago. She said in Galician with pantomime that she’d thought I’d looked familiar when I came in. Again, the same warm hand-clasping greeting. A Reboleira is, at the moment, plagued with road reconstruction. I felt bad because this was one of the best places to stay on the Camino Frances and the construction seems to be ruining business. They have an original Galician palloza in back where they serve dinner for all the hikers, in addition to the cafe and courtyard that are open all day. Stay with them if you can.
Yesterday I seem to have been following Jesus. He was at A Reboleira all alone drinking a beer at 10:45 a.m. A very thin young man of perhaps 22 years with long hair and beads and necklaces around his neck, wearing robes and sandals.
I took the San Xil route today, as visited the monastery at Samos on the other option the last time through this particular route. The San Xil route is hilly, but fewer km to Sarria, and I liked it well enough. I’m in a 30 Euro pension close to both bus and train stations. With a window that looks out on the cavity of the elevator shaft. Sarria is the closest town to the 100 km mark, 100 km being the required length of walk to qualify for a Compostela. Sarria is a good-sized town that has everything needed.
The last sighting of the Croatians was when they were amassing on the outskirts of Sarria at a meeting point in a little park. Several had Croatian flags attached to their daypacks. I don’t know where Sting went, but it was suspiciously quiet.
I think I’m ready to be done hiking (until I’ve been home for a few weeks, anyway). It took an hour of effort on Renfe’s internet site to get the first of the needed tickets for tomorrow’s train rides to Ourense and then on to Santiago de Compostela. The train station here had schedules set up, but the station was closed, and the ticket office posted that it didn’t open for ticket sales until 09:00. My train leaves at 09:02. The Monbus option’s taquilla was also closed, as they often are in Spain if there are no buses departing soon or if the bus is already Completo. Their Transbordos/transfers required for the morning train toward Santiago were also ambiguous. I eventually downloaded the app and booked through Omio for the second leg on the train. For those planning, Omio was much more straightforward than attempting to book through Renfe’s circularly impossible system to get through.
Panaderia, Sarria. Dino with a baguette in mouth, seemingly made out of pieces of corncob.
The truth is (mine anyway) that we Americans are used to everything being relatively standard. We don’t have to figure everything out on the fly because things are generally done in the same clear way from place to place. The Europeans just seem more flexible than we’re used to having to be. Maybe that’s not fair, I don’t know.
I won’t miss the ambiguity about where and when to order in restaurants (the Spanish business model is said to be that the customer adjusts him or herself to however the business operates, not the other way around), what may or may not be open during siesta hours, or whether anything at all will be open from Saturday at 2 pm until Monday at 10 a.m. I won’t miss the endless variety of bathroom fixtures and locks, or the ambiguity about whether toilet paper is inside bathroom stalls or somewhere out in the anterooms. Or the “energy-saving” toilets that won’t actually flush anything, or the uneven steps, or the language difficulties. I won’t miss waving my arms in hallways, on stairs, and in toilet stalls to get the motion sensor to turn light back on. I won’t miss worrying and checking, checking, checking to make sure I have passport, bank cards that are working, and access to cash machines. I won’t miss worrying if my valuables are secured well enough to not be slammed into and pickpocketed like I was in Melide once.
“You will enjoy your travels in foreign cultures to about the extent that you can tolerate uncertainty”. This was one of the most helpful things I read when I first started traveling many years ago.
But I AM looking forward to being in the Happiest Place on Earth tomorrow, my birthday. See you in Santiago.
Husband Tom came up with this idea of having been inducted into the Hiker Chick Hall of Fame when last year I’d texted him from Berducedo on the Primitivo Route that had made it over the tough Hospitales stage. Because he is diplomatic, he didn’t add the Old part.
Reception, San Nicolás, 17th century monastery, Villafranca del Bierzo
Today was another Hall of Famer day on the dread climb between Las Herrerías and O Cebreiro, and to add to things, the day started in Villafranco Del Bierzo, 28.1km before. The plan was to get to La Faba, part-way up the mountain, but since once at La Faba it seemed far too early to stop, I called La Escuela in La Laguna de Castillo (a very good albergue where I stayed last time through – it’s the only lodging between La Faba and the summit in Do Cebreiro). Completo. I decided to take a risk that once in O Cebreiro there would be someplace to stay, even if it were at the albergue, which Kristina re-warned me about when I ran into her.
Although it was a little concerning that the first three places in O Cebreiro were completo as well, the unreserved rooms fill up from the hiker entrance end of the village first, so more toward the farther end of town, Casa Venta Celta had a room. Cash only, at least for the price she gave me. My room is in an attic with ancient rough-hewn beams. It has an old boardinghouse feel, but I have a dry room in an atmospheric stone village that is usually enshrouded in fog.
It got really cold this afternoon up here on the summit, and it began to rain. I asked Gregory if he thought it was cold too, but as usual, he gave me the silent treatment. Sometimes I have no idea what’s going on in his brain. Oh wait, yes I do.
The last time I did this route, I’d run into foot/shoe trouble and quickly used that as an excuse to road-walk this said-to-be-very strenuous day. The N-6 is very easy to walk up, and looking left at the huge mountain that others were climbing, it seemed impossible that anyone could do it. For others who might need to keep to the N-6 – the fact that it can be done isn’t in guides or apps – just don’t make the left off the main road toward Las Herrerías after Ruitalan and walk up to the next town (Pedrafita do Cebreiro), making a left over and above the A-6 superhighway. From Pedrafita, you can walk the road (LU-633) to O Cebreiro or stop at the tienda and choose a cab service from those listed on the door. If need be, the LU-633 continues from O Cebreiro to Linares.
This is where Castilla y Leon stops and Galicia, with its originally Celtic culture begins. There is bagpipe music playing some places.
I was 5 years younger the last time doing this particular route, but not in as good shape as I am now, and this time found the climb very doable, even though the hours of climbing were at the end of the hiking day. I haven’t used my hiking pole since a steep descent on the San Salvador for stability. Gregory carried the pole the whole time on the West Highland Way in Scotland this year also.
Most of the day until Las Herrerías was roadwalking, but not too problematic, and some of it along the burbling Valcarce River in the woods.
English is the lingua franca on at least the (main) Frances Route. Having some French on the less popular routes really helped this time as well.
There were some women that I’d run across here and there that I had had friendly interactions with when passing. At a stop today as we exchanged greetings, I asked the friendliest one what language she spoke (French), since mostly people just smile and wave and say Hola or Buenos Dias. She initially guessed that I was German (Allemagne), and when I told her I was American, there was an overt expression of negative sentiment. Next time it will be “je suis Canadienne”, and I won’t feel bad for lying. There has been quite a bit of overt anti-American sentiment detectable, but that’s not new here in Europe. Fortunately there are so many friendly people that some people’s more openly judgemental attitudes don’t color the overall experience.
Message tree, Las Herrerias. Someone said this practice is Shinto in origin.
I’d been seeing a few couples holding hands walking these stages. One couple in particular ALWAYS seemed to be holding hands and walking a bit slowly. When at a chapel on the trail known as a place to get sellos, this couple came in and the husband dropped her hand briefly. Since she was facing me but looking off into space, I smiled at her and said Hola, but in that moment could see that she was impaired in some way. I ran into them two days later passing a rural cafe where they were both on their phones, but she silently tapping away and looking in another direction than her phone and seeming to listen to voice commands. Quite possibly blind. Yet she was brought along and loved and watched over by this man who was leading her and holding her hand the entire way. Very touching.
I stopped in to the Panaderia in Vega de Valcarce for a break and texted the woman who was working that I’d stayed with them years ago and really enjoyed it. To my surprise, she came out from behind the counter and warmly hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. Then on leaving, I said “hasta la próxima vez”, until the next time, and she hugged me and kissed me again. Forest Gump was right. You never know what you’re going to get. These warm exchanges always help dispel the beginnings of a sense of isolation, as does sharing a laugh with strangers who speak other languages about something funny that’s immediately happening.
The scallop shell of the Camino Sant Iago In concrete over the tunnel entrance
There was a tall young woman with three others chatting away in a non-English language while walking along ahead, and several of us were about to overtake her group when she inexplicably burst into song. I walked past laughing and when she realized that others not in her group were behind and heard her, she was really embarrassed. I told her that she sounded happy, to which she said “yes, HAPPY. Not CRAZY”. A good laugh was had by all.
Coming into Trabadelo. A very good cafe stop
A kitten was stuck in a tree in the touristy, often fog-enveloped, ancient stone mountaintop village of O Cebreiro – and meowing about it, so I went into the nearest souvenir shop and google-translated that a kitten was stuck in a tree to the guy behind the counter. He started talking and a Spaniard present who spoke fair English translated that the store guy had said that the kitten belonged to a woman who lived around the corner and that since her cats had all-but ruined his roof climbing on it, he would prefer to poison the kitten instead of try to get someone to get it down out of the tree. Sometimes these unexpected and very honest interactions strike me as very funny, and Spanish men seem to enjoy making someone laugh.
Bronze – O Cebreiro at the hiker entrance end
There is a guy on YouTube named Jim Kwik who has an interesting personal history and is a memory specialist. He noted that people can be thermometers or thermostats. The thermometers are monitoring/guaging the temperature of their environment only, while the thermostats sense the temperature of their environment, but also actively contribute warmth (or coolness) as suits. I’m trying to be more of a thermostat.
Extremely good hot Caldo Gallego on a cold night (Galician kale, potato and onion soup)
The staff here at Casa Venta Celta seems to be looking out for me in a very kind way in this busy place. Feels nice and is appreciated.
I’ve started to think about how it will be going back home. There comes a point where all the cultural unfamiliarity and language problems become wearing when you’re struggling with them alone and the familiarity of being home sounds better. I’m not quite there yet, but soon.
It will be a slacker-blogger day. WordPress wore me out trying to get answers for why nothing would upload. But it’s all right now. They’d hosted me free of charge for years and they thought it was time that I got an upgraded subscription. Done.
Exiting Ponferrada is made much less tedious by different routing. The first time I did it following the old printed guides – that exit leads through the rest of the city sprawl. The newer app routed the same way, but a public works guy pointed me to the river walk park – when just over the second bridge (exiting the old part of town you’ve just walked through and about 10-15 minutes after the Templar Castle), make a right on the sidewalk to stay alongside the river. It’s marked as if this is what was intended by the city, and it’s a more peaceful, green way out and onward.
Sculpture Garden … the best thing about the road route between Pieros and Villafranca Del Bierzo
The little cafe in Columbrianos not far out of Ponferrada was open. Many in the cohort from yesterday were already there having “second breakfast”. I’d had tostada with tomate aceite and coffee at the Hostal (Hostal Rio Selmo). The hostel section seemed to be 6 very basic rooms, private baths within a larger private apartment building. It was quiet and inexpensive and I’d stay there again. Easy to book on the fly via Booking.com.
Fuentes Nuevas has an especially beautiful church interior, and if the ladies are outside stamping sellos, you can get a credencial there also for 2 Euro if you need another one.
Then were the vineyards leading to Cacabelos where today there was a trailer with shade tarps set up in a small wooded area. They were serving expensive-but-very good food like gazpacho (which I can never seem to get enough of) and grilled sandwiches with goats’ cheese and a sweet marmalade of roasted red bell pepper. There were hammocks, good music, couches/seating areas like a living room in the woods. There were several of us solo female hikers and other women in twos on the trail today, and many stopped here at this pleasant place. Gregory made himself at home briefly, seemingly to the amusement of other hikers.
Then Cacabelos, which seemed and still does seem like something out of the American Wild West: a very long street lined with a particular type of Spanish architecture. I had a better impression of it this time than last time when there was a festival going on.
After Cacabelos, a suggestion. Take the longer route through Valtuille de Arriba instead of taking the road directly to Villafranca Del Bierzo. That longer route might add 45 minutes, but you’ll be in vineyards instead of dodging cars on a fast, sometimes shoulderless road. I’ve gone both ways and the longer vineyard route is much more scenic and less hazardous.
It seemed to take a long time to get to Villafranca Del Bierzo. The town’s plazas were in full lunch mode around 2 pm when I rolled into town. When I found the place I’d booked (Hospederia San Nicolas – there’s an albergue option there as well as habitaciones) through Booking.com, I felt as though I’d just hit the lodging jackpot. It’s not a basic pension. It’s a vast historic monastery, my favorite kind of lodging. I have a large, plain room with private bath (likely monks’ cells) for 30 Euro and couldn’t be happier. The building is beautiful inside and out, and they have a bar, restaurant, and straightforward 11 Euro meal choices. I tipped the waiter and he tried to buy me a beer with it.
There was a large group in a separate back dining hall singing. Badly (malamente). The waiter told me they were breaking his ears, which was very funny in pantomime.
I’m not sure what more could be hoped for in a day.
Gregory seems to have developed a liking for Spanish TV. I had to go out and run errands without him because I couldn’t pull him away from watching The Love Boat en Espagnol. What a goof.
The day started out well with a cafe con leche at El Trasgu (in case you missed yesterday’s post, a Trasgu is a gnome in Asturian lore) and a conversation about music with a very beautiful and gracious woman running the place this morning. She couldn’t have been more kind.
Cruz de Ferro – iron cross where people put down stones they’ve carried on the trail to symbolize a burden that they’ve carried in life. Although a fan of symbolic gestures, I pass by giving thanks to all those who made doing this possible and to all who I am grateful to in life.
Just as I was thinking “this isn’t as much rock path as I remember”, it started. The part of today’s decent that was probably solid rock creek bed at one time. All the way down to Molinaseca…..and yet again there were insane young males on mountain bikes careening down these nightmare rock paths barely missing the walkers.
The French family was on the trail and doing well. They’d started their day in Rabanal and were likely on the trail at sunrise.
One of many memorials along these trails marking where some caminantes died doing their Caminos. I like the message of this one.
Ran across two Germans and when the subject of our nationalities came up, I told them the truth, but that I was telling people I am Canadian, which got a good laugh and the comment “probably a good strategy”. Although I do my best to behave against stereotypes of Americans, the truth of the matter is that I’m impossibly American. There’s just no getting around it. Kristina, the female of the two, had only been walking with the younger German guy for a short while, and with taking pictures for each other, we struck up a rapport and walked together to El Acebo and had early lunch of zucchini and pepper frittata. Around the same age, we found we had much in common. She lives just outside Cologne. Then we walked the rock path down to Molinaseca where I decided to stop for a rest and have pimientos de padrón (Padron being a very nice town south of Santiago on the Portuguese route) while Kristina kept on. I sat in an outdoor cafe and watched the Spanish families and maybe a few peregrinos out for a Sunday afternoon of having lunch together and swimming in the river under the Roman bridge that hikers cross into town on.
Román Bridge, Molinaseca
Early in the day, there were two adorable Spanish girls encountered who – as teenage girls seem prone to doing – were walking along singing Justin Timberlake’s “I want it that way” in English. As I passed, I told them I liked that song too and they giggled and said “Buen Camino”……and continued singing with such abandon that I could still hear them a half-kilometer ahead.
In El Acebo, a little one-lane village at a peak after many hours since the last possible place to stop at Manjarin, there are two main eateries in competition with each other at the start of the town. I chose the one on the left because had gone to the one on the right last time. It’s probably not easy to welcome a ton of hikers from all over the world day in and day out all season. The place on the left is called La Rosa del Agua, and a guy whose English was completely fluent and sounded American intercepted us. He lived 20 years in Houston, come to Spain to teach ESL and never left. I’d just been in Houston volunteering on a Hurricane Disaster Recovery rebuild project earlier in the year. He told us all about his business model and said we looked like “Camino veterans”, which was the truth about Kristina as well. He hikes the Caminos once/year himself, was working very hard and I hope his business does well. It was nice to have a real conversation with a fluent English-speaker (Gregory is more the silent type, and if he actually starts talking, I’m going to the nearest mental health clinic with Google translate). For those who might want to stay in El Acebo, in addition to the usual lodging, there’s a nice-looking, brand new albergue on the left at the exit from the town.
After the pimientos de Padrón in busy Sunday Molinaseca, I decided to keep walking to Ponferrada and made a hotel reservation via Booking.com on the fly. After getting cleaned up, I tried to find someplace open and serving food before 8 pm and finally found someplace down an alley in the old town that was associated with the hotel next door (Los Templarios). If there were ANY stores open at all on Sunday in Ponferrada, I would have bought empanadas again, but instead had some horrid meat, a small, cold, flat omelette, some canned red peppers and tepid frites. Ugh.
Here are some pictures of Ponferrada (named so because there was a bridge here with some ironwork decorating it – Pont = bridge and Ferrada = a way of saying iron. The bridge no longer exists), including the 12th century Templar Castle. I visited the castle last time and, like others, found it lacking in information, detail and artifacts, and not all that interesting. And the old town adjacent is very small. The Iglesia is impressive, though. Basically, I just don’t think I like Ponferrada very much.
Templar Castle, 12th Century
Tomorrow will be a series of little suburbs getting out of Ponferrada. I made a reservation for overnight in Villafranca del Bierzo. There may or may not be places open for food or other needs along the way. Many closed stores have signs on them saying “on vacation”. Like France, many take their considerable vacation time….like an entire month….in July and August, and some are not open Sunday OR Monday anyway. We’re not on the American plan of convenience, that’s for sure.
Old Town Ponferrada
I could eat a horse. And may well have for dinner tonight….
Wending my way through the streets leaving Astorga (one of my favorite towns on the Frances Route) this morning, it was so quiet that it seemed like a different place than the night before. The plazas are packed all evening and then Spaniards have dinner around 10 pm here. Kids play soccer (rather, Fooot-BOWL here) on the plazas while their families have dinner in the sidewalk cafes that line the plazas.
Today was as much of the so-called Conga Line that I’ve seen, and it’s a pretty sparse Conga Line. That’s what gets said about the most-walked route – the main “Frances” route (because it originates in France on the French side of the Pyrenees where several of the four actual routes through France combine to go across the Pyrenees). It’s something said on the main forum usually as a reassurance to women walking it alone. The Frances is the only route where I HAVE had problems related to being female and walking alone, and there were some fairly ugly experiences. But enough about that.
The “Conga Line” – it lasted for a few minutes until everyone spread out again after the last rest stop
Today was full of pleasant people walking and cycling. A French couple with about 5 kids – some of whom they’d walked the LePuy with. She actually wanted to speak in French, so we had a good exchange. There are several groups of Asians, two of whom I leapfrogged with all day. When they plowed past on the uphill to Rabanal, I told them they were “young and strong”, which they for some reason found hilarious. Tons of Spanish and Italians walking today. And a few Germans. But zero Brits, Aussies, Canadians or Americans.
Santa Catalina de Somoza – First available rest stop if the day
The Cowboy Bar and the Sidre place next door, El Ganso (second rest stop)
A very pleasant garden with comfortable chairs in Rabanal run by the owners of the tienda across the lane. She wouldn’t take a donativo for sitting in it to rest and eat packed lunch. There are new Quechua tents set up that are free too, and a tiny building at the back of the compound housing two bathrooms for all to use.
My cheap Walmart sandals that I actually liked are still under the bed at the pension in Astorga. But pas grave. It wasn’t my passport, cell phone or money cards, so all else is replaceable.
Storks’ nests in bell towers all over this region
This is what 37 Euro will get you in Spain:
The Hostel El Trasgu de Foncebadón is everything one could hope for (a Trasgu is like a gnome in Asturian lore), and in the tiny village of Foncebadon, which is next after Rabanal. Foncebadon consists of about 12 stone buildings in various stages of disrepair vs. renovation on a hilltop with views. Nice staff, 37 Euro (maybe 43 USD), a tienda/store for edibles and essentials like foot care items. And a cafe open all day until 10 pm. I’m glad to have started into the mountains beyond Rabanal. I’m the only English-speaker here, so am at liberty to sit alone on the sunny terrace among about 30 others at tables chattering away in languages I don’t speak or understand but a few words of here and there. Laurel taught me a useful phrase: no sé….. I don’t know for when my rudimentary Spanish fails. And so I have solitude among others enjoying a beautiful late afternoon in the sun.
Finally….a huge pile of protein
Natillas – custard with a large wafer almost covering. Served all through Galicia and in Portugal as far south as Porto.
The cafe had a beautiful song playing called “It Ain’t Me” by Sara Farell. Downloaded.
From the front patio at El Trasgu, Foncebadón
Tomorrow I’ll probably stop in Molinaseca at the bottom of the treacherous descent from the peak or try to keep on to Ponferrada. That will make about either 19+ or 26+ of some really rough terrain. The Hostel Casa San Nicolas is a great place to stay in Molinaseca – I stayed with them last time through. It’s owned by a Brazilian businessman and his family who left Brazil at the start of politics-related instability (he’d worked with a corporation that sent him to the States a great deal, and his English is excellent). They are delightful people and the communal dinner was a traditional Brazilian dish. I was sick with a flu and they brought me dinner to my little room along with a glass of milk and honey – I awoke the next day feeling much better. And…..the most comfortable beds and bedding ever in any hiker lodging).
These two might also get names before this trip is done if some English speakers don’t turn up. Like Tom Hanks’ friend Wilson in Cast Away….
When leaving the Hotel y Apartamenos Palacio Arias this morning to catch the 06:50 bus out of Navia, the very kind night manager wanted me to have their breakfast even though I thought I should go sit at the estación de autobuses, which was only a very short walk from the Hotel – because I’m a worry wart. But he was so enthusiastic that I let him take me to the dining room where he asked the staff to make coffee and some breakfast available 20 minutes before they normally start serving. A veritable feast was laid out. Melón, meats, about 15 different huge tartas including queso tarta, a semi-sweet and light cheesecake-like tart and, of course, patata frittata.
And then the manager himself walked me through a shortcut via the hotel’s garage right to the front of the Estación.
I didn’t exactly rough it last night.
For travelers here by the tag, the Feve train was an option out of Navia, but the ALSA buses are reliable and another good option. On its medium-distance buses, ALSA has WiFi and SOMETIMES a little bathroom compartment accessed by a cabinet door and down into basically a closet in the cargo hold below the bus. Which struck me as very odd the first time I realized that there actually was a bathroom down there. It turned out to be easier to get to Astorga via Oviedo and Leon than via Lugo, so although it was backtracking a bit, it saved some struggle.
A giant’s backpack in front of a sporting goods store – Astorga
While at Oviedo’s train station waiting, I was able to buy the ticket for the only reasonable remaining train option to get from Santiago to Madrid on 12 August……10 days ahead….. and that is a train that leaves at 05:10 a.m. Popular place, Santiago de Compostela. I was able to reserve a good place to stay in Santiago only ten days out, which is not always the case.
Astorga’s ayuntamiento, or town hall, on one of several large plazas
Spain…….what a pleasant culture. People are much more connected and relaxed. There is more open and ready goodwill. A pleasure to be here.
The trains can be confusing. Each train station has its own different way of doing things, it seems. The number of the train I was supposed to get on (the train number on my ticket) wasn’t showing up on the board at all. I asked at the desk if there were another number for the train (as, confusingly, happens) or another terminus than Leon that I should be looking for on the board. She told me the alternative terminus that WAS showing up on the board, but they separated us into two waiting areas maybe by coach number or Preferente cars vs Turista cars. In France at Bordeaux’s train station the stands for passengers were especially important to get right because at a certain stop, the back cars split off and went in another direction. I was hoping not to end up in Barcelona this time by mistake.
On the train leaving Leon, a ton of people got on and headed for the one Turista car (the cheap seats….). I realized that I had sat down in the correct aisle but the wrong seat…..but there was a charming young Frenchman in the seat I was supposed to be in, talking away to his friend in French. So I told him in French that I’d taken the wrong seat (the conductor was coming around checking tickets) and asked him if he was ok with staying where he was. To which he smiled and said in English “evrybahDEEZ in zeh wrong seat on thiz train. Doen worry. Nobuddy geeves a sheet”. I had my good laugh for zeh day.
West facade, Astorga’s Cathedral
Fun to get on one of the apps and watch the bouncing blue ball (locator) move along with the train. The app says the tracks come near the superhighway and you look up and there’s the superhighway. Like magic to a rube like me. But not so fun when the locator shows you’re going in a direction you weren’t expecting the train to go. Somehow they end up in the correct station even if they go by unexpected routes. My bouncing blue ball gets lost sometimes and I find it stuck in a town visited days before despite having used the app with locator many times since that town. And then sometimes it looks around trying to figure out where it belongs….like a lazy eye…..and makes me very nervous to think for a second that I’m really way off track until it bounces into the correct place.
Gaudi’s Bishop’s Palace – Astorga
Astorga. One of my favorite towns. It’s my third time here. Astorga was at the crossroads of trade routes for centuries and still seems to have a tradition of hospitality. And they’re known for chocolate-making. The Chocolate Museum is well worth spending a hour in. It’s in the lower city around the rail station.
Jewelry store with fantastic tile work. The people of this region were known as Maragatos at one time.
It’s a relief to be among a few people who have some English. I went to the turismo and talked with someone who had a list of the lodging with star rating, so got an idea of what might be cheaper for a private habitación. I went to check out the Restaurant-Hotel La Peseta in the end of town I wanted to stay in, but had low expectations. A peseta was a Spanish monetary unit before the Euro. It’s rooms are above a very chi-chi restaurant. And for a 2-star, they’re plenty nice, with sleek bathroom, and on the 4th floor there’s a tile roof out my window, which makes a great place to dry clothes because the terra cotta radiates heat from being in the sun. Great if birds don’t poop on your laundry, that is…
There are places on the plazas that serve food all day, which was impossible to find on the San Salvador and the Norte. While I may have reached my limit for pollo empanadas from the groceries and Panaderías, I’m not in the mood to sit alone among others and don’t want to attract any company either. So…. grocery store empanadas it was again. Some dining advice for Astorga: unless you want to waddle back to your room feeling green from being overstuffed, don’t try to eat a traditional Cocido Maragato on your own. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Tomorrow will be a slow climb up to Rabanal and then onward to Foncebadon for the night. Astorga will be the last town with any extra services for two days.
It’s 87F here instead of the 67F on the coast, which I like better. Gregory isn’t all that wild about it because then we both get all sweaty and smelly in the heat and he can’t take a shower until we’re back home. He’s kind of a priss like that sometimes.
The French trio were at the cafe where I stopped for a Café con leche first thing. The cafe was run be two strikingly beautiful people – a tall, thin, dark-haired women with dreads and a beautiful face and, likely her partner, a similarly tall, dark, rather elegant and handsome man. The cafe con leche was good and the customers lively for that hour in the morning.
Then a very sweet man intercepted me on the way out of town to make sure I was taking the Antiguo route out of town for the chapel and the views. Amazingly, I understood the basics of what he was trying to say. Here are a few pictures from the climb out:
The hiking was a mix of farmland, a little forest, and a few unwise stretches of roadwalking including a bad one coming out into Bao. It seems wrong to me to route unsuspecting people this way, and there isn’t really much forewarning on any of the resources available beforehand so that hikers can make an informed decision about whether they want to do that section. As a retired trauma nurse, I would not knowingly agree to doing these especially dangerous parts.
Laurel: I know, I know…..I’ll Fedex you some….
It seemed like a long way to the next opportunity for cafe con leche in Villapedre, but worth the wait for the patata frittata and funny graffiti in this little roadside place seemingly afflicted with a few wannabe revolutionaries with too much spare time.
Then a typical enclosed rural cementerio, this one with its own morgue.
And a sweet message on a wall on the path:
“I don’t want problems between us”
And finally, a descent into Navia, the beginnings of which have seen better days, but at the hotel, at least, were really kind, helpful people. Everything one could need as a hiker-traveler is here including a bus station (as usual, without all the arrivals/departures posted, so since there was a little ambiguity, I decided to take the earliest bus back to Oviedo to get to Astorga rather than going via Lugo).
Dinners from the Alimerka groceries are working out well.
Since I’ve seen my fill of the coast here again on this stretch of the Norte and since it’s actually a little cool here, I’m going where the weather suits my clothes: onto the main route to hike the Astorga to Sarria mountain section with probably mostly newbies. But maybe a few English-speakers and warmer weather.
Voy a verte pronto…..hopefully in Oviedo, Leon or Astorga, depending on available connections.
Honestly. It doesn’t get better than this. Flat paths in the woods and on backroads, friendly people previously at rest stops waving and smiling, a brief wander around a crumbling old chapel in the woods and sitting outside in front of a busy backroad cafe at a curve in the road outside Canero having cafe con leche and listening to Latino pop in the sun among a bunch of other happy people from all over Europe. As close to Heaven as I’m likely to get.
The Italian doctors (the 2 women of the 3 doctors) were there – they have only 9 days to get to Santiago. Yesterday they got tired of the exhausting path and flagged down a car who gave them a ride to the posada in Villademoros. And thought nothing of it.
Something not to miss: That roadside cafe is the Hotel Canero on the N-634. I stepped back onto the road to continue the hiking day behind another group of Italians (who seem to be out en force this year along with the French) who had just been talking with a road surveyor. He told them about a path to the beach and back out through the woods that made a shortcut to avoid a massive road switchback on the very fast N-634. The Italians smiled and waved for me to follow, and although I wasn’t sure where the surveyor had told them to go, they looked so happy that I did.
For the beach and the shortcut to bypass that long switchback, take the steps down to the left of that roadside cafe/hotel and follow that lovely “secret” path out to the beach (Playa de Cueva or Cave Beach) and soak in the views. Then to get onward on the correct path, back out to the beach’s parking lot and look for a little wood-railed bridge leading to a path up into the woods. It bears right beyond the little wooden bridge and then follows the coastline for a bit, so the views are beautiful. At the top of this “secret” trail I ran across two young people in the middle of an advanced amorous encounter in front of their tent, which could have been awkward but we all laughed. I’d thought to practice saying Paco’s “Que tenga un buen día” some more, but clearly they were already having a good day all by themselves.
Be sure to have a GPS/map with locator to get back to the Camino if you take any detours or if you aren’t sure whether you’re on the main Norte or the Coastal Norte.
On this path, I also passed a man out walking using a bastone (walking stick) with a calm white greyhound trotting ahead of him. Perhaps the most graceful animal I’ve ever seen move. If you are new to hiking in Spain, just be careful about following people with day packs (sometimes people have their large packs transported, so some do only carry day packs…) and bastones (walking sticks).. They are often local people, and going along after them thinking they’re on the Camino can get you lost. I found this out the hard way years ago coming down from the Alto de Perdón…….and ending up on the cycling route for two hours on a busy highway….
And for Pete’s sake, don’t look like you aren’t sure where to go because kindly locals who are out walking the roads for exercise will stop to talk to you and guide you along.
This day has some intermittent roadwalking on very fast road. Sometimes it’s not difficult to just step aside for the traffic. Sometimes.
Luarca – Market day. One of Luarca’s Casa Indianos in the background
This was an easy, very pleasant stage. Coming into Luarca, it seemed as though it was going to be a peaceful seaside town around a bay with cliffs and soaring seagulls, but as you descend into town, things get busier and busier until you’re down in the middle of packed city streets, seagulls screeching, people talking loudly and market day going on. Until 2pm siesta time, that is. Then…..poof. Except for the seagulls who ignore tradition and go right on screeching.
An endearing young man let me check into this very nice old hotel early at noon. I like how men treat older women in Europe. As if you’ve got something interesting to say. I paid more than usual to be sure to have a place to stay (without being obligated to sleep with yet MORE male strangers… ), but I think it was worth it for one night.
It’s chilly. I found some leggings to buy at the local “Chinese store” (discount stores run by the Chinese in larger towns in this area of Spain). And some dinner from the Panaderías:
Even Gregory is delighted to be here (see how projection works?). I caught him enjoying the charming balcony with what almost looked like a smile on his face.
He is knackered, though, even though I did all the hard work to get us here.
There were two options for this stage. The coastal route has mostly forest and many ups/downs (some a little steep), but plenty of beautiful views. The mountain route recommended by the app has no signs of civilization for 20k. It was recently reported that bushwhacking was involved because the latter is so overgrown. Both routes reconnect close to Cadevedo. Since I had just come off the San Salvador and had no shortage of mountains and bushwhacking, I’m going for the route where a cafe con leche is possible and where there are bathroom options that don’t involve stinging nettle, thorns, or peeing on your shoes.
It was a tough but very good day of hiking. This is nothing like the last time I did a stretch of the Norte…..in a good way. The better signage and the app map with locator makes all the difference. There was near-constant up-down-up-down in the forest, some roadwalking on blind curves with no shoulder, then steeper up-down-up-down in the forest, some “ooh, there’s the ocean”….rinse and repeat x15 or so times. Cars tear through the little towns at 60 mph seemingly without obligation to slow down.
Most of the towns along the way are very pretty, two with cafes. Met several walkers – two young Spanish girls, three French people, a Czech guy doing high km days because he had limited time off work, a Spanish father and daughter met as we entered a pitch-black tunnel whose end could not be seen – the whole way under the A-8 and out the other side. And several others. But still no English speakers.
The Cementario
The guy in the car who intercepted me in El Pito the morning before was sitting in the parking lot of the Cementerio after the exit from Soto de Luina this morning. I made a reservation with him (CasaCarin in Villademoros) because Cadavedo really has nothing under $130 available and the municipal albergue gets bad reviews and has no WiFi. My understanding was that I’d have a private habitación for 15 Euro, which sounded too good to be true. It turned out to be a particularly nice close-to-the-beach “touristic”/rural vacation villa place that invites peregrinos in when they haven’t booked all of the apartments to vacationers.
The man who runs it, who is pleasant and has some English, showed me around a very nice patio apartment and showed me to my room in the apartment. A bell went off in my head to ask if I would be the only one staying in the apartment…..the answer was no, there was to be “an Italian couple” in the other bedroom. But my ROOM was private, he pointed out. Later he offered to take some of us to the grocery back in Cadavedo and on the way there, he and the others pointed at two robust older men hiking toward CasaCarin. They were the Italians that I’d be sharing the apartment with. Massimo and Alejandro…..and they’re not a “couple” either. They were initially dismayed to find that I am American, but one of them follows the Steelers, and in the end they could not have been more kind and welcoming.
The WiFi doesn’t actually work in my room, so it’s out in the public areas for me. Yoga in the grass was out because it becomes a spectacle.
Mick from Essex sent a good article on the therapeutic benefits of walking from The Guardian. We’d had a discussion about it in Pajares. My theory is that walking and other soothing, rote tasks engage the part of the brain that worries, leaving the rest free to get on to better, more rewarding, productive thoughts.
I know. It’s just a bug. But it’s a really beautiful bug…..
Mick also said he found ticks. He also sent a recent post from the Camino online forum warning about an Italian man who is following women on the Norte and getting too familiar with touching. In usual Camino Forum fashion, the poster compassionately suggested that the man was “probably just lonely” and also suggested that the males on the Norte make friends with him so he would have friendships (seeming to reason that if he had male friendship he would then leave the females alone). I stopped reading the main Forum years ago related to this kind of indulgent reasoning. I lost my patience with this sort of thing long ago.
An example of a Casa Indiano
The Italians sharing the apartment invited me and two Italian women doing the Norte to eat together…..they were cooking pasta. At first I said that I had many groceries in the refrigerator, but then decided to “say yes” and to not to be a standoffish American. I asked to help with dinner, had a nice conversation with Alejandro (from Bergamot and loves his life there – edit 2020, Bergamot , in Lombardy, was sadly at the epicenter of the pandemic in Italy due to garment workers coming and going to/from the Milan area) and the apartment filled with a friendly and family-like atmosphere. How often do you get to watch Italians cook pasta? When in Europe, just do as the Europeans do…….
They turned out to be 3 doctors and a guy who has hiked the Via de la Plata (1000 km) and over 3000 miles in North America: the Appalachian Trail (2000 miles), then up through Canada to Nova Scotia. One palliative care doc, one surgeon, one family practice doc. The other was an ice hockey player who does mission work in Africa, and all could not have been more welcoming and kind and funny.
What happens when you just let go and “say yes”? They feed you pasta and sing “Oh Solo Mío” and kiss you goodnight three times on both cheeks.
Tomorrow will be a short day to Luarca partly because of the limited lodging options. Once in Luarca and beyond, I can then get a bus to Lugo or a train elsewhere if I’ve had enough of this. But I did book ahead at what I hope will be an ok hotel for tomorrow night.
Coming up to the Norte has been a good choice so far. And I’m getting better at unscrambling Spanish and mostly getting by with less reliance on Google translate. Thanks, Paco Que Tenga un Buen Día!
Typical mojon indicating the way. People leave memorials and stones representing a burden left behind. I almost left Gregory there.
Getting on-path from the train depot in Muros de Nalon couldn’t have been more simple and the day’s hike was through mostly ups and downs, some a little steep, much of it in the woods. There were a few glimpses of the ocean. I’m not going to try to follow the alternative coastal possibilities after having trouble with them being unmarked last time. Plenty of time to visit the coastal communities ahead.
The Wisely apps have made doing this much less stressful – you can just watch yourself on the locator on the map in real time to make sure you’re on the path if signage is absent or ambiguous, which was rare today.
El Pito is a really pretty, “upscale” town with an estate/manor house and a huge Iglesia. There’s also a cafe on the path, but it wasn’t open at around 09:30 when I passed through.
Sometimes hikers do this to help out those behind when signage is absent or unclear.
The A-8 Superhighway
The first hiker I passed was a solo female, so that was good. When I sat down on the side of the trail for lunch, there were a few small groups of walkers, maybe around 12 in total. And many more cyclists on the cycling route. In fact, it sounds like about 20 very noisy Spanish ones checked in upstairs. So far, no English speakers encountered today.
A guy in a car cruised up next to me exiting El Pito, but just wanted to give me an ad promoting a hostel in Cadavedo for tomorrow night. But then another one in a beat-up car with his fingernails painted green caught me exiting the woods onto the road into Soto de Luina, slowed and cruised alongside, seeming to have never seen an actual Peregrino/Peregrina before. He kept asking questions and although I kept it as brief as possible, I was glad that the bridge into town was close. Gregory really isn’t much help in these situations….he only hides behind my back.
During the last 3 km I’d grown tired of the uphills and the descents stumbling over tree roots and rocks and thought how freeing it would be to ditch Gregory at a rest stop when he wasn’t looking. But there’s a price to pay for the chains you refuse, and in truth, I need him far more than he needs me.
Look at him sitting there all comfortable. He has no idea that I would leave him if only I could…..
The evening meal not starting before 8 pm at earliest is a minor problem. I’ve usually gone to a grocery or panadería or pastelería by then and end up eating two dinners. At least.
Hiker information: For those who haven’t used the Feve trains, they’re separated from the high speed and other trains because they run on narrow gauge tracks. And they’re a lot slower. But they’ll get you to many of the smaller towns on the North coast of Spain between Bilbao and Ferrol and they have lines going south from Oviedo as well. In places like Leon, the Feve is in a completely different Station about a kilometer away from the main one. In Oviedo, the Feve arrivals/departures boards are all on the second floor at the far end of the main train station. The train to Muros de Nalon first goes south to Trubia, and then reverses direction and goes to Grado on the Primitivo and northwest to the coast, which can be a little concerning if you are following along on GPS. And do save your ticket for exiting the turnstiles at your destination.
At the train depot in Muros de Nalon (unstaffed), exiting the building, just go left a few meters to the first right and the yellow arrows are right there.
Hostal Paulino, at the entrance to Soto de Luina before crossing the bridge, is a good option for a private room with shared bath for 12 Euro more than the Albergue in town. It’s operated by two sisters out of the office of the fancier hotel next door. You can have dinner at the hotel. And you can do yoga in your underwear in your room instead of in hiking clothes in the grass behind an Albergue hoping for some privacy but instead being gawked at openly for 20 minutes by some local guy out walking his dog.
Yesterday was such a slog that I thought the views and pleasant parts were probably over and thought to take the Cercanías to Oviedo, but am glad to have finished on foot. The 19k Mieres to Oviedo is very pleasant with quiet backroads and rocky trails though forest said to be Roman roads. Plenty of uphill walking but nothing too strenuous. It was good to have pepper spray out and ready with so many barking, aggressive guard dogs. All were behind fences except one that was a puppy and several aggressive ones being walked on leashes, but requiring further restraint by their owners. Pepper spray makes me feel more protected, as have had a few very frightening encounters with loose, huge, aggressive dogs elsewhere in rural Spain.
I would not have wanted to walk this in one go from Pola de Lena! Others who did the entire 34 km the same day reported being “totally knackered”. It was tiring enough to do 19 km. There was a bar/cafe open in Olloniego – Luisa’s. Seemingly run by Luisa herself, who has some purple hair, seems initially gruff, but who is actually very kind. And she’ll give you a sello and some cookies with your cafe con leche. You can see Oviedo starting about 7 km out from a crest in Venta del Aire. There’s a pleasant Sidreria (cafe where cider is served) in El Barrero run by a kindly gentleman who brought little tapas and then brought more of them.
There’s Gregory. He really should drop a few pounds. It would make my life easier.
I saw no other caminantes at all on most of these days during walking the del San Salvador, so if you do this, do it knowing that there will be a great deal of solitude. I chose this more remote and strenuous route this time for that reason, and for the views.
Oviedo city’s path indicators
Oviedo is a wonderful city with art everywhere, beautiful architecture, and elegant parks. This is my second time through and this time the Cathedral was having mass, so the window to get a sello/stamp was closed, but they have sellos at the place I like to stay, so no worries. In fact everything in Oviedo is completely closed all day on Sunday including groceries, but many eateries were open. Sunday afternoons seem to be when entire families go out en promenade together and the old city was full of relaxed, happy people enjoying a beautiful day. I saw no one coming in from the San Salvador direction into town (south), but there were a few people with backpacks in the squares and several said Buen Camino to me, and so were likely arriving to start the Primitivo or coming down from the first half of the Norte to continue to Lugo on the Primitivo, which I did last year after the LePuy in France and a bit of the Norte.
How about these corbels?
Evidently Woody Allen likes Oviedo and filmed some of Vickie Christina Barcelona here. Evidently Oviedo likes Woody Allen too because they have a bronze statue of him on a plaza just off Calle Uria. He looked bothered, as usual, and people were putting their hats on him and taking pictures with him.
Vintage posters at the train station
I found a charming place that had croquetas casera. They gave me 12 of them, so I brought 6 back and would like to overnight FedEx them to Laurel, who likes them very much.
Cathedral of Oviedo
I can’t get onward tickets for the Feve (slow, narrow-gauge rail running from Bilbao across the northern coast) until the day of travel, just like last time. My train for Muros de Nalon leaves at 07:30. I’ve decided to go walk a few more days of the Norte/North coast and see how that goes.
Above see Gregory’s replacements if he doesn’t get an attitude adjustment. He doesn’t want to leave Oviedo tomorrow and is cranky. So I made him stand in a corner.
Arriving in Pola de Lena the night before, ran into Mick and Tatiana. Mick calls us his girls, which is very sweet.
It was such an un-scenic day today that I took only a couple of unimpressive pictures. I did receive an adorable one from Mick and Tatiana as they were heading out from Pola de Lena at the crack of dawn…..a picture of them already cafe-con-leched-up, packs on, hiking poles ready and great big smiles.
Trail notes for those here by the tag:
Pola de Leña is a good place to stop in a small-but-active city, but from there it’s a slog to Mieres even if it’s only a 12.8 km stage. I’d read that the road as far as Ujo was “bad” and almost took a train through it instead of risking walking it because it was said that there was walking on the side of a big highway, but it isn’t actually walking ON highway. Rather, it was on a quiet access road that had fast, but infrequent traffic. Since there is the Autovía near and also the River Nalon, be careful when you have to cross the road to avoid blind curves in the oncoming lane because once crossed, with the noise from the Autovía and river, it’s hard to hear a car coming from behind. Or the second car right behind that one.
Mainly, it’s just a charmless section of access road, some industrial buildings, and a few scruffy towns. And it’s poorly marked as well.
It was raining the whole day and the temperature has dropped into the 50’s F from the 90’s two days ago. And evidently no one wears or sells tights in Spain…..mine are already wearing out.
My advice is: Take the C Train. The Cercanias runs from Pola de Lena, so pushing the easy button is a good way to get to at least Ujo or on to Mieres.
The good news is that beyond Ujo (roughly halfway through the day), the rest is on community river walk.
You’ll cross into Mieres on the bridge connecting the Feve and Cercanias/Renfe stations, in case you need to get tickets. You’ll exit town by the Hotel Mieres del Camino, which is a good option for lodging, if a little more expensive than basic pensions (still 1/3 what it would cost in the U.S.). I’d booked when getting into town at Hostal Pachin, but when I got there in the pouring rain, the doors were locked. It was a little early for check-in, but I wanted to drop off Gregory instead of listening to him whine about being lugged all over town sightseeing. There was no bell at the hostal door. No one answered a knock. A sweet man showed me a second entrance to the side, but no one answered there either. Then I called their number and no one answered. That seemed to mean that they didn’t need or want the business, and the reservation was cancellable with no charge, so that’s what I did. I stopped in a panadería and had a gooey, delicious pastry, booked at the other non-albergue option (Hotel Mieres del Camino) and was settling into a comfortable room 20 minutes later.
Paco was at the Repko gas station/coffee stop just before the first town on the stage – a fellow caffeine lover – and we walked to Mieres together. The signage was absent in some places, so turns were missed. If you didn’t have an app, you’d need to have good Spanish to ask others how to get back on track, or maybe a very detailed map. Even Paco, a truly veteran Camino hiker who often does 50 or more km days, found it so. I’m starting to like the double-kiss greeting and parting custom.
There was a small panic when my iPhone recharger seemed to not be working. I thought I’d have to stay here another night to get a new one…….because stores close on Saturdays at 2 pm and don’t open again until Monday morning……but the problem was actually that I hadn’t put the room card into the slot to activate the lights….the card is what activated the plugs. Always a little struggle to figure out the differences in how things work here. And I also have a working, rechargeable external battery pack, so needn’t have worried at all. Guess once you’ve had a few real problems arise when overseas alone it can make one wary.
Paco went on to Oviedo in the rain, as did Mick and Tatiana. I told Paco that I’d remember him when I used the words and the phrases he taught me. He laughed and told me to remember that his name was “Paco Que Tenga Un Buen Día” (Paco Have a Good Day). And he gave me good advice for if I go up to the Norte: don’t start in Aviles because it’s huge and industrial. Muros de Nalon is a good place to resume the Norte. I’d stopped in Ribadesella last time and taken the bus to Oviedo to do the Primitivo, so this will be an onward section of the Norte for me. Paco will go to the Albergue in Bodenaya on the Primitivo next to visit his friend who is the hospitalero there. I’d met his friend when I was passing through Bodenaya on the Primitivo last year en route to La Espina.
……some Iglesia in Mieres that I’m too lazy to look up…..
And as always, even in 3-star hotels there is no controllable heat. But the Alimerka supermarket makes good gazpacho and empanadas, so nothing more is needed tonight. And I see that Boris is the new Prime Minister of Great Britain because there is a TV here.
I don’t even know if I’ll take the train tomorrow or walk, or if I take the train, which direction I’ll go in. Nice to have time, experience, choices. Not all who wander are lost.
I’ve tried to alternate days between the albergues and private accommodations, which is working out well.
It rained most of the morning, but this day was much easier to negotiate and also very pleasant, although it is rated as a 4/5 difficulty probably because of the elevation gain and steep (“pendiente”) ups and downs and sometimes very narrow (“estreche”) and overgrown paths in the woods. Vigilance is required to not miss turns. Talking to a hiking partner sometimes causes a missed turn, but on a path like today’s where slips/falls would be easy, two being together in case of a medical need is good. Paco taught me something very smart about difficult hiking days like this (although they’re hardly previsible): try not to be the last one to head out of the albergue in the morning in a rural area so in case you run into trouble, someone will be coming along behind you. With two sets of eyes, one of the two often sees a turn even in the most engrossing conversation. And when all else fails, get back on track with the app/locator on your cell phone. Although it occurs to me that there is some risk in that as well because if you drop your cell phone in the wrong place or slip and break it, you’re overseas without connection.
So Paco taught me some more Spanish and he impressed me with having essentially taught himself an encyclopedic amount of English, including many of our “sayings”, such as “the apple of my eye” (which he learned from watching the Simpsons), sayings which sometimes have counterparts in Spanish. He has done two Caminos/year since 2014 and once walked 66 km between Arzua and Santiago, which is the most I’ve heard of being done in a day ever by anyone doing these hikes.
We passed this fellow. Paco named him “Trump”.
La Colbertoria train station between Campomanes and Pola de Lena. The Feve runs through some of these towns also on separate narrow-gauge tracks.
The second part of the day after Campomanes (thanks to Tatiana, we English-speakers are better able to say the names of these towns correctly: like Campo-MAH-nez) was flat and along very easy and pleasant unused access road all the way to Pola de Lena.
“Cascades” en Espagnol
The Santa Cristina Romanesque Church is along the way. Mick and Tatiana were up there resting in the grass. It was straight up quite a hill, but well worth the trek to have a look. What Mick called me for deciding to stay elsewhere that night instead of at the badly-rated municipal albergue with him and Tatiana starts with a “p”…….. I enjoyed calling him the same when they showed up later having decided to stay where I was staying after they’d checked out the municipal.
All that is needed can be found in Pola de Lena – groceries, pharmacies, a Cercanias/Renfe station (which stops at Puenta Fierros and Campomanes also before stopping here and going on to Oviedo and Gijon). And some nice Spanish Architecture and friendly people as well.
This post is mostly trail notes for those here by the tag, but there are also some beautiful pictures from this trying, but overall good day.
View from Posada El Embrujo, Poladura de la Tercia
Although the first part of this stage is well marked, the parts later are a nightmare. So far everyone here at the Albergue in Pajares got here by GPS on downloaded offline tracks on maps with locator. There would be no way to do this by written instructions. Without a bloodhound. A bloodhound who knows how to use apps and GPS tracks. You will also need to carry an external battery pack, which alleviated a ton of stress all throughout this hike and last in Scotland this year. Most that I spoke ended up using their backup external battery because following starts to be almost continuously necessary and your cell phone battery is unlikely to last.
There are spectacular views, but you will need to go prepared to the nines. If I had not at the last minute downloaded GPS tracks, I’d still be wandering in the mountains drinking iodine-tableted water from livestock troughs and hoping someone came along who had the technology to find the way.
I slipped on scree going down steep slopes twice, one time twisting a knee in the middle of a herd of cows. So busy was I dusting myself off, making sure the leg was ok, and being grateful not to have fallen in a cow pie that I missed a subtle left arrow and ended up in Busdongo instead of Arbas Del Puerto. I might have walked the highway had the traffic including massive semis not been flying around the curves, but instead I retraced my steps up the mountain to where I’d left the cows and found my mistake (amounting to perhaps 5 km extra). The path down to Santa Maria de Arbas was also tricky and getting down to the road took some creativity. But the “Leon (Asturian) Romanesque” 12th century church there in Santa Maria de Arbas is beautiful. It was once an Augustinian place that housed pilgrims to Santiago and other travelers, later made into a parish church.
This kind of raised pebble “mosaic” floor is seen all over Spain in military buildings, monasteries, and other historic public compounds, always at the entrances. I’m thinking maybe it was for traction when arriving in muddy weather, possibly on horseback.
A bit of roadwalking is required to get to Puerto de Pajares, which has breathtaking views and an old Parador that serves food and drink. The bocadillo I got there was so large that it lasted for two days. The scenery and the architecture of the parador reminded me of the alps in southern Germany/Bavaria. To my knowledge it is not possible to stay overnight there yet, but when it is, it’s likely to be a very popular place. There were many car tourists on the terrace enjoying the views when I stopped for lunch.
Parador, Puerta de Pajares. Spectacular views and the cafe is open for day-visitors.
…….Then, after that, the nightmare began. The written instructions can say to “follow the highway down to the flashing lights and go left”. There are no flashing lights, confirmed by the staff at the Parador. And “go a little ways down the highway” doesn’t mean follow the highway onward down the fast, no-shoulder, hairpin-curves that cars and trucks come barreling up at high speeds. It means go back “down” the way you arrived just for around 50’/15 meters from the Parador and cross over the road into an industrial compound and go behind one of the buildings that at present has green shingles for the first hint of a “path”. The rest is pretty much a crap shoot. The best advice I read beforehand was: follow the power lines. They won’t always be overhead, but they’ll be generally nearby as you slowly pick your way down sometimes unmarked or no-actual-path ways. For hours. I got here by, at the last minute the night before, joining Wikiloc’s paid service so I could download offline maps and then downloaded a GPS track by someone named “chasquear” who recorded this stage’s track and saved me from a much more stressful day. So thanks, chasquear!! And I ended up on external battery pack because it was necessary to not vary a millimeter from this track just to get through some sections. The newer Wisely app for the San Salvador (which has offline maps that can be downloaded and used with your GPS locator which automatically shows up), is the best way to do this stage. The app seems to be hosted by Ivar from the online English forum (caminodesantiago.me) in conjunction with the Pilgrim’s Office in Santiago.
I had no cellular service at the Puerto de Pajaras with Verizon/Orange, but others did, and I had good cell services prior and sometimes after. If you’re staying in the albergue in Pajares, it’s good to have a hotspot/great cellular data plan, as WiFi isn’t possible there.
Best of luck doing this. The Albergue in Pajares is good – no dinner or breakfast, and only the Mirador restaurant for lunch and dinner, which can be arranged with the albergue’s hospitalera Marisa – you have to call ahead the night before if you want to eat in town. There are two dorm rooms and one shower/toilet/sink room. Mick and Tatiana were there and a very fun dinner discussion was had. Be aware that when places want to know if you want to arrange lunch, they use “comer”, to eat, in this region, and “cenar”, to dine, for dinner. Tatiana says that’s rather unique to this particular area, and if you tell the places wrongly, they’ll book you for the wrong meal, although we’re told that the confusion happens all the time.
Paco from Grand Canary Island was there at the albergue, two others from the Canary Islands, a young German fellow, Jose from Madrid, and a few others. Gentlemen all. I was the only female in that dorm and actually slept pretty well.
Me, Tatiana and Mick after a very fun dinner at the Mirador in Pajares (also sometimes called Payares on Spanish maps). Mick and I are both sober folks, so poor Tatiana had to do address the traditional endless flow of table wine that comes with dinner in Spain. What endless hardship these hikes are…..
What a hiking day! Very good from start to finish. The first 16k to Buiza wound through pleasant, sleepy little towns, natural path in woods and along quiet backroads, and although some have said they disliked the roadwalking into Buiza, it was through very pretty scenery and it wasn’t that difficult to move aside for the intermittent (but fast-moving) cars.
Gregory kept whining about being thirsty, so we had to stop at every fuente in every dusty little town. And then he wanted his picture taken like the traveling gnomes. Sometimes traveling companions like him can be a real burden.
As for trail notes, the 8.5 km route after Buiza is steep and through cattle grazing enclosure for about 45 minutes, but no bulls that I saw as occasionally others have when walking through. Spain is said to have laws against pasturing the more aggressive bulls, which is almost reassuring-but-not-entirely. Once up, the views are spectacular. Like the Hospitales day on the Primitivo not far from here but without spending all day doing 30k. The white rock formations reminded of the limestone cliffs on the Cele variant of the LePuy in France.
After saying ciao to the Italian cyclists, who are probably halfway to Oviedo by now, I headed out around 07:15. It took until around 1:45 to get to the Posada el Embrujo in Poladura de la Tercia, where you must call ahead the night before if you want to eat there because it’s a tiny town and the owners have to arrange to have enough food on hand (the people at the albergue can arrange to eat at the Posada also, as it is the only place in town to eat). There’s nowhere after Pola de Gordon to get groceries, so your options are to bring your food with you or arrange to eat dinner and/or breakfast at the Posada. And don’t forget….these are the only places to get food before having ordered ahead for the evening meal (no breakfast available) from El Miramar through the Albergue in Pajares. That means stock up like crazy in Pola de Gordon if you want to have food on hand before…. about a half a day AFTER Pajares in Campomanes…..
I was walking around the edge of a mountain on a path where a misstep could be very bad when heard a male say “there’s Beth” in a raised voice and a female voice call out “Wooooooo”. It was Mick and Tatiana from the albergue in La Robla. I’d passed them earlier. Mick from Essex, GB, has done the 100k from Sarria and is getting started on his hiking addiction with the help of Tatiana from Brazil who has done many Caminos including the 1,000k Via de la Plata from Seville. They’d met in Alicante on a previous trip. The funny thing was – they were but the tiniest figures ON THE NEXT MOUNTAIN at least a mile across where I’d just come from. Amazing how sound carries. They’re here tonight, and so is Jose from Madrid and Damiano from Italy – all from the Albergue in La Robla last night. Jose offered to let me use his hotspot in Pajares, which was very kind.
Otherwise, locals have been very sweet all day (I think we might be entertainment in these tiny one-street towns). A man out hiking on the last stretch had very good English and told me about finding mines still embedded in the mountains from the Spanish Civil War. They tell the police who send the bomb squad to detonate them. He also – along with the rest of Europe – believes that our president is “crazy”, but agrees that some things needed to be addressed. Which lead to the subject of immigration. Evidently Spain takes an amount second only to the US and small towns here are receiving many, as they are in the US. They’re having some problems, but unlike here, the police address them without apology or worry about upholding the customs and laws and expectations of Spain.
Later in the outdoor sitting area of the Posada, I got a history lesson about the Spanish Civil War. Evidently 300,000 people are still “missing” from when Franco was in power and there’s a new push to return remains found to families. Remains which are also showing up along with old bombs even now so many decades later.
These people at the Posada are delightful, and there is a little dog that belongs to the proprietors – for a big dose of affection on arrival.
Not the amazing happenstance that it looks like. Someone put up a plastic or metal silhouette for travelers’ enjoyment.
Tomorrow will be a 14k-but-concerning day up to Puerto de Pajares and down to Pajares in terms of remoteness, elevation gain, an area of iffy signage and no cell service. I guess I’m as armed as I can be, but my locator isn’t showing up on Wikiloc (I downloaded the path, but since there aren’t any clear landmarks and my locator isn’t working on Wikiloc, I’m not sure that would help). But I have a compass and an external battery pack in case I run out of juice. Wish me luck because Gregory lacks a sense of direction and is useless in situations like this.
I apologize. That was a bit of a misrepresentation. But at least a partially true one.
Most who do these long-distance routes stay in the albergues (Spain and Portugal) or gites (France) at some point. They are essentially simple dorms for casual tourists and/or hikers. There may not be lodging other than an albergue at the end of a particular stage, a hiker might want cheap lodging (municipals are 5 -7 Euro. The private ones 11 to 18 Euro), the person might be lonely after staying in private rooms, or maybe, like one guy tonight, it’s a matter of wanting to have the experience of staying in one. They can be full of anything from quiet, adult, well-behaved people to the complete opposite. Most who stay in them have stories to tell about what they saw that they were surprised by. My own introduction was years ago: a little bow-legged guy in at least his late 70’s parading around in only a dirty Speedo. Later I saw a woman wearing a lacy, short babydoll nightie in one. Brushing your teeth next to a male stranger is at first odd and later nothing at all. Showering in a stall next to a male stranger is the only option some places, but it is common on these routes and in the albergues I haven’t seen any of the exploitation or threatening behavior that I’ve occasionally seen out on the trails. But all who stay in the albergues remember the snoring and farting. Who WOULDN’T want to stay in them under those circumstances……? I stay in a mix of albergues and inexpensive habitaciones in pensions usually.
Scallop shell indicator of the route direction in Leon
The “Buen Camino” well-wishes both started and ended in Leon. Most doing the less mainstream routes drop this. But it’s a kind thing that locals and other hikers say on the main route, the Frances.
For those new to “Doing Caminos”, they’re the old Crusades routes leading to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in the northwest of Spain. People occasionally start from as far away as Scandanavia, Geneva and Paris, and there was a group on the Frances who had walked (with bus support) 3,500 km from Slovenia/Croatia. Although very interesting, I won’t go into the history of them here – there’s a post about the history on the linked NotesfromaHermitage.wordpress.com, but they can be very good/sometimes transformative experiences whether one walks them for religious, cultural or other personal reasons. I walk them because I love to do long-distance hikes, and much of Europe is actually set up to accommodate hikers. Except for the more remote stretches, there are cheap hostels/hiker dorms and very inexpensive food options. There are 45 routes to choose from in Spain alone (with many others joining from Italy, Northern and Eastern Europe via points on the border with France), and you can choose what you want to pass through: dusty little towns, wonderful large cities and larger towns with tons of museums and monuments, Roman sites, and varied landscapes throughout even a 200km hike. I love to be among people from all over the world on a common path, the history is fantastic, the towns and cities passed through often beautiful and rewarding to visit, and the goal, Santiago de Compostela always, repeatedly, seems the happiest place on earth.
Follow the yellow arrows or scallop shells for a few hundred kilometers on any of the 45 or so routes in Spain alone, and you’ll eventually get to Santiago de Compostela……
If you have to sleep with strangers, I recommend the bunch from last night at the 8-bunk/16 bed albergue in La Robla. The hospitalaro (the staffmember who runs an albergue) at this particular Albergue arrives at 6 pm, registers everyone by passport (a law) who has already arrived and claimed a bunk, and then he goes home for the night, leaving a whole bunch of strangers to sort things out if there are problems. I saw no problems on this particular remote route, as it was mostly older, experienced hikers. On more popular routes, the albergues open around 2 pm for the next wave of hikers.
Last night there was a group of …..let’s say very well-made and charming…..Italian cyclists (who shower and then walk around in only a towel and come in to use the women’s bathroom ad lib when the men’s is full…..), a few pleasant Spaniards, a Brazilian woman who mercifully speaks English and is happy to translate, and her Brit friend. Maybe her close friend, I’m not sure. Not like Gregory and me, anyway.
As I have before, I text Tom the next day and tell him something like “I slept with the entire Italian cycling team last night”. Which he finds pretty funny. Or yawns and says: “that’s nice, Honey”.
How could you NOT want to do this, I ask?
The day starting out of Leon began with a sello from Hostal Quevedos, a sello in this case being a unique stamp put into a credencial (a booklet) from someplace you’ve passed through that 1.) allows you entrance into the albergues and 2.) proves that you’ve actually done the route should you want to wait 2 hours in line for a Compostela, a certificate of completion of at least 100 km, in Latin, when you get to Santiago.
Regarding the first day of the Camino del San Salvador, a mountain route said to be more remote than even the Primitivo, I would skip ahead from Leon to one of the towns more toward La Robla on this day. There wasn’t much all that noteworthy about the day except a steep and fairly remote stretch with a strange, rusted memorial cross (usually where someone died doing these hikes) that had been set up to look like there was someone trying to climb out from under the earth.
Trail notes for those there by the tag: Unless you like walking on sidewalks in bland suburbs and alongside roads with fast cars, I’d recommend taking the ALSA-ville bus from a few meters off Plaza Santo Domingo at the bus stop on Av. Padre Isla (schedule is as Sariegos.es and choose transporte publico) to at least skip this 7 km or so to Carbajal de Legua. Between there and Cabanillas, there are some steep, rocky, remote-seeming stretches. There is a fork in the middle of the day where the yellow patch on a tree indicating to choose the path to the left is so faded that you have to really search for it and almost use your imagination to see it, but the left fork is what you want. Exiting Cabanillas, there’s a misleading set of yellow arrows that will send you out to the cycling route on a fast but not extremely busy road. The walk to the road across the Berenesga River is very pretty, and after only a few km, this same road goes back over the river, makes a left into Cascantes at a sign saying “Cascantes 0.3 km”, and at that point you’ve rejoined the main path. Which is then busy-ish and fast roadwalking with a stretch among an industrial/factory area. When you reach Cabanillas, note the purple sign at the end of town toward the albergue to the right, follow that instead of following the yellow arrows left. That way, you won’t get stuck dumped out on the cycling route until you get to Cascantes. Then you’ll be on the road the rest of the way to La Robla.
Here’s that slacker Gregory taking a break at the fuentes in Cabanillas and Cascantes, two sleepy little one-road towns typical of these rural areas.
The day after this one was wonderful, though, and was everything that we hike for. Hasta luego.
The phrase “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”(because I know you really, really wanted to know…..) comes from a Noel Coward song from the 1930’s about how the English don’t keep with many warmer countries’ custom of resting during the warmest hours of the day. That would be siesta time in Spain, and GOOD LUCK finding anything open between 2 – 5 pm or even later. Here’s the song on YouTube:
This morning, while face up on the floor doing sit-ups, I finally noticed this beautiful high ceiling in my room at Casa Mudejar. On closer look, it’s very old/not reproduction material. Surprising how inexpensive these very nice hotels/hostels/pensiones are in Spain – the groceries and food same!).
Casa Botines on Plaza San Marcelo, Leon. One of Gaudi’s earlier works and similar to his Bishop’s Palace in nearby Astorga. And very DIS-similar to his more undulating works like the Sagrada Familia, et al, in Barcelona.
Sculpture by Amancio Gonzalez on Plaza Santo Domingo. Kids like to climb all over it. Here is another that looks to be by the same sculptor, although he does other styles. The figure is holding a dead bird. There is a tradition of touching this statue’s toe. You can see how it has been touched until the metal turned shiny bronze.
It seems I’m a rube (still….). It will probably always “goon me out” to watch a high-speed train plow through a station on a bypass track 15 feet away at 200+ mph.
Spanish Red Cross
Among mostly sacked-out passengers, we crossed La Meseta, (or plateau) at 260 km/hr. At the height of summer, the Meseta is mostly wheat-colored and flat with distant, hazy, lavender-blue mountains.
Parador, Leon (historic places turned into hotels across Spain). Many historic places, both inside in halls and outside where there would likely be mud (and probably horses moving through) have this patterned, rounded stone inlay, probably for traction. The Parador is the start of the del Salvador route between Leon and Oviedo. I was able to get a “peregrino rate” one past year and was given a fantastic room overlooking formal parterres for a break from the hostels. Really something inside.
Needing to pick up some items for the hike, I set out in Leon togo to a deportivo tienda I’d found online, but by the time I got there, they were already closed for siesta, so there were a few hours to kill wandering the near-empty, twistystreetsin the roasting mid-afternoon sun. Which, being from a river valley in the Southern USA, I like anyway. I spent some time sampling the Coke Zeros (that would be pronounced Coke THER-o here) at several trendy eateries. From after Spanish lunch around 2 pm until 8:30 pm there are a few people in the sidewalk cafes, but there is rarely any food served. They give you little tapas to hold you over, even if you just order a soda. But no dinner served before around 8:30 or later.
Since it happens often that when people ask incredulously if I’m traveling alone and I tell them yes, they then seem to expect me to justify it, I’ve decided maybe I should just tell them that I travel with my hardy and seasoned friend Gregory. Here’s a picture of Gregory having a little rest at the train station today. He looks like he needs to do some sit-ups.
I wandered past the cathedral and then down to San Isidro and stopped in El Cid park to take my hiking shoes off and wait out siesta closing time. My mistake was standing/sitting still, as it so often is. An elderly, bright-eyed woman sat down next to me on the park bench, started talking, and never stopped. I thought maybe she was lonely and that she liked having a listener even though I told her in Spanish that I understood very little (which deterred her not at all). It was kind of nice being with her even though a struggle to translate.
A fierce wind-and-rain storm blew in and the streets were hazy with brown, blowing dirt. People in the streets seemed a little alarmed. Which may mean it will be 27 km in the rain and hot wind tomorrow. I’ve hiked in a low Category 2 Hurricane in the Pyrenees before, so general wind and rain aren’t going to ruin the day. It’s off hiking to La Robla on the Del Salvador mountain route to Oviedo in the morning.
Although the novelty and excitement that I used to feel traveling out from a quiet life is gone these days, something even better has taken its place…..a sense that the world is a connected flow and that we all have a place in the flow no matter how far from home we are.
From the Chelsea High Line with Empire State Building
The usual suspects were on the Amtrak eastbound, this time supplemented by some loud and ill behaved children whose adult slept for hours. The usual mentally ill people who pace, rant, and gesticulate were in place at Penn Station in New York, one sitting against a pillar at the Long Island Railroad entrance singing loudly and delusionally about having been given Ebola by a minority group…. of which he was a member.
There is no sense of public space in New York belonging to any particular philosophy or language or ethnicity, which is freeing in its own way. Those speaking English-as-a-first-language there are now quite a minority, if you can even find one. Things seem to be going well there despite so much having changed over the years. This time outbound, I didn’t have to stay overnight, but usually nowadays at night there are homeless sleeping all over the sidewalks, which the business owners are not happy about. I’ve been surprised at how friendly New Yorkers have become these last few years, though, and enjoy being there when passing through.
The Vessel – like a playground to climb. Chelsea High Line.
I walked the Chelsea High Line (thanks to Becky Baker and Leslie Nemeth for recommending) with hoards of others on promenade in the hot soup of a 94 degree day. Like a sauna with wind. Was intercepted by a delightful local cyclist who identified me as a traveler and shared his experiences living in Spain on $2/day in the 60’s. Had fun, interesting little conversations with people of all sorts, and enjoyed running across little scenes that you just don’t see living in a small mountain town.
(….I feel fairly sure I could out-run this thing….)
And then the part of travel that’s more of a strain: jammed public transport, service interruptions and confusing rerouting, a full pat-down after the TSA scanner mis-read damp clothing from the heat and exercise, and a jam packed discounter flight in cattle class all night over the pond during which exactly no English was heard among the hundreds of passengers aboard a humongous Dreamliner bound for Madrid. At Bajaras, another schlep to Terminal 4 and another problem getting ticketed to Segovia, but I got to see Chamartin, the northern of the two major rail hubs in Madrid. By “got to see it”, I mean running to find an out-of-the-way platform just in time for another security line for the connecting AVE (high-speed) train to Segovia (259 km per hour) and full of polite Spaniards, mostly in families, and a few miscellaneous foreign travelers. The landscape into the Castile y Leon region is beautiful.
Segovia. My youngest sister Laurel lived here for a summer and she described it well. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. It was no sleep for about 36 hours, but the twisty old-town streets, the Hotel Casa Mudejar (lots of Mudejar architecture in Segovia) is comfortable and empanadas and Spanish pastries are making it all better.
Cathedral, Segovia
Gargoyle, Segovia Cathedral
From the Alcázar in Segovia. Couldn’t get much of a face-on picture of the Alcázar in the blazing afternoon sun.
Segovia meets Kentucky Fried – I took that one for Laurel:0))
Balcony with bromeliads, blinds closed during siesta. The town doesn’t get rolling again until around 9 pm, dinnertime.
Spanish bump-out windows
Dinner on the fly
I’ve made an online reservation for the AVE train to Leon tomorrow and a reservation for lodging there thanks to this hotel’s good WiFi, and will try to get a little more sleep before catching the bus – at a stop under a massive Roman Aqueducto – back to the Guiomar train station just south of Segovia.
Long-distance hiking has a way of bringing one’s flaws and weaknesses right to the forefront repeatedly. Which is at first frustrating, but then becomes an opportunity. When you can see your shortcomings glaring at you, you can work on them.
Much in life has an abbreviated counterpart on a trail. Like a condensed life. There’s a beginning, middle and end. There are rewards all along and also pain, hardship, suffering, uncertainty. People come and people go. You find yourself in situations you had no idea were possible. There is kindness, a few “arseholes”, strategies and plans that need to be revised. But maybe the best is finding out that all over the world are wonderful people willing to smile, help, be connected along the way.
This morning leaving the lodging in Kinlochleven, the lady at reception asked where I was staying in Fort William. When I told her where, she made a face and wouldn’t elaborate. A little worried, I decided that whatever awaited was going to be fine as long as there was some running water, a mattress, and a basically safe place to sleep. It couldn’t be worse than many of the dorm hostels I’ve stayed in on other hikes.
Today out of Kinlochleven was about an hour of incline, but none of it really problematic. There were points early in the day that were scenic, then a long slog through lumbered landscape, so hours among razed tree stumps and stubble, then the majestic Ben Nevis mountain and another long slog along a very busy road.
Yet two more sets of people told me they’d been using me as their “pacer”. I had no idea my backside was so popular.
Ben Nevis
I stopped to eat my brown-paper-bag lunch at a ruin of a bothy, went around back to “offload some fluids”. While in “offload fluids position”, I looked up to find a ram regarding me at eye level 3 feet away. I was mistakenly thinking he’d behave like a goat, try to chew my clothes, and that I’d have to keep pushing him off of me if I wanted to eat lunch, but he did none of that and waited patiently for a few pieces of apple to be tossed at his feet. Then a ewe and her lamb came by, but evidently decided I was too scary to get that close to. Sheep are much more polite than goats.
At another bothy ruin there was a couple, the man of which was wearing a tam o’ shanter and had a beautiful Scottish accent. We exchanged pleasantries and when I said that from a distance I’d hoped this building was a place to get coffee, he said it was his house and that he was going to fix it up. My bullshit meter dinged, and for the rest of the hike when we leapfrogged, his fixing up this ruin was a little running joke. Fun. But pretty much everyone on the trail today was fun and most said they were glad to be finishing.
Having a good level of fitness is really helpful. Taping your feet when you first feel pinchy points and then preventatively each morning helps. A hiking pole is useful for stability on the trickier downhills too. My thanks to Dr. Lauro for the Cortisone injection that made carrying a pack possible, and my thanks to Adam Brown for the fitness and safety training that have made all the difference. And, as always, thanks to husband Tom for staffing the Adventure-Gone-Wrong Hotline and checking on and feeding that little ingrate Louie-the-Cat.
Mountain bikers perfectly willing to mow down hikers….
Coming into the town center of Fort William at the “Sore Feet Statue” there is a corner pub called the Glen Nevis where many trail friends were having beers, some of whom are climbing Ben Nevis tomorrow. It was a happy reunion with congratulations all around, although this was such a short hike compared to the 35-day ones that I’ve done that I felt a little undeserving.
And I’m pleased to announce that the Bank Street Lodge in Fort William is fine. Kind of old-seedy-flophouse-ish in the public areas with twisty halls that have both up and down runs of stairs within the same hall, but the staff is lovely (a cheery, kind woman who gave me my room key back on return from dinner said, as if she’d been waiting for me: “THERE you are, my darling! Here’s your key”), the room basic but perfectly adequate. I showered and Norman Bates didn’t show up. And so far there seem to be lots of families from all over the world newly checking into the surrounding rooms instead of noises such as might be expected with rent-by-the-hour places. Great WiFi in the rooms. And A block off High Street.
Fort William town-center
I checked out the gym on the way in (but am considering having a “nice lie-in”, as they say here, instead), talked with the Scotrail people about the train tomorrow, did laundry in the room, and had meh-and-terribly-overpriced Indian food at Cafe Mango after stopping in at a pub and finding it too “pubby”, if that makes any sense. Judging from the looking going on, I’d say that a woman walking about on her own is an oddity here as well, but so far no problems.
View from room
So here is the end of the West Highland Way. Do it if you can! And there’s more good news: The Great Glen Way starts here in Fort William and goes up to Inverness. A next hike in Scotland is definitely on the radar – the John Muir coast-to-coast or the newer route to St. Andrews perhaps…..
The official end of the West Highland Way in Centre Town Fort William is at this bench. When I arrived, a fellow hiker I’d met from Birmingham, UK came out of the pub where he and his mates were celebrating, greeted me with a hug, and took this picture. A happy occasion, like arriving to see trail friends in Santiago de Compostela, but without taking 30 – 45 days and mercifully in English.
Off to Glasgow-Stirling tomorrow and then on to Edinburgh the day after. Be there or be square.
I’d considered that Satan himself might be at the summit waiting, but perhaps he’d taken the day off. There were only a few very happy trail friends enjoying yet more spectacular views up there.
The Devil’s Staircase (after Altnafeadh) wasn’t as strenuous as it’s name suggests – maybe a little more steep than the peak after Bridge of Orchy. It took 35 – 45 minutes to summit. The way down wasn’t extremely steep either, but it took much longer, and it seemed to take forever going downhill to get to Kinlochleven.
The views were spectacular for at least 2/3 of the way.
First thing this morning there were what might have been Black Grouse, but their call didn’t sound like the usual. Moorhens? There were two of them, so the funny “baBARbaBARbaBAR” sound they were making may have been a mating call. There wasn’t any tail fanning/display behavior though, so I don’t know. It’s on the video if there are any bird watchers out there who might know.
Correction to video: Inversnaid is on Loch Lomond where the worst rocky path starts. The most spectacular views start between Bridge of Orchy and InverORan. So many Invers- around here….Inver evidently meaning “estuary”, which makes sense for where places including this are situated. A Loch is an enclosed body of water like a lake.
Here in Kinlochleven (very pretty town), there is an iron pipe system bringing water from the reservoir above (which you will pass on the way down). Here at McDonald’s Hotel and Campground, they tell me that POWs built the pipe system during WWI. Near where the pipes ran into the town, a bunch of men were out working on top of these pipes. Joking, I asked if they’d sprung a leak, and in fact that’s what was going on. The foreman said they spring leaks all the time and there was another leak spraying farther down that they said they’d be working on later. Pretty impressive.
For those here by the tag, there is a Mountain Rescue Team here that evidently doesn’t charge for rescues. I don’t know if that would be the case if a helicopter were needed, but medical evacuations can be extremely expensive. I haven’t seen anyone injured yet, including 750 runners on nightmare terrain, but there’s all sorts of potential for injuries from falls. It’s probably not a good choice of a hike overall for those who haven’t done much distance hiking in remote areas before, although people are doing it in pairs with one experienced hiker and one novice and doing ok with backpack transport, which is available.
This was not my favorite day despite the scenery mostly probably because I’m socialized-out, really “knackered”, as they say, and having trouble focusing. Tomorrow it’s 24 km and the final day to Fort William.
Gnome garden, Kinlochleven
The TailRace Hotel says on it’s sign that they have Traditional music, so I stopped in to ask when it started. They don’t have any music at all. I tried to see the Aluminum museum, but it was closed.
This isn’t a bad trail to do alone, but I probably wouldn’t do it without a Smart phone and advance reservations for lodging. People are curious about why one would do it alone if you’re a female, so be prepared with a little canned answer if you’re hiking it alone, are female, and this curiosity bothers you (I’ve run into this quite a bit). There are actually several of us solo women in this cohort of hikers. There’s good camaraderie along the way, so that helps. I’ve decided that a big smile and a good word are much better than stressing about interacting, and that maybe it’s not necessary to be so annoyed with those who immediately want explanations for my being alone. Women are out traveling and hiking all over the world now with smart phones and internet access, but I guess to some it’s still an oddity. I tell them that it’s not the best way, but that most I know are either still working or would never consider doing these things…..and so if I’d waited to find others to do things with, I wouldn’t have seen and done most of all I’ve seen and done in the last 20 years.
I had a bowl of Colin Skink (Scottish haddock and potato chowder-like soup) for late lunch and a nice curry for dinner, both at the pub at MacDonalds, which was an un-fussy and comfortable place to stay.
And I’ve learned that things and language are Scottish and people are Scots. Good to know! I’ve so enjoyed these people’s way of communicating. Very direct/to-the-point, often warm, rather tongue-in-cheek sometimes. I’ve not met anyone who seems timid yet, and they’ll usually tell you what they think in a pleasant way if you ask.
There were tons of kayakers out in Kinlochleven. I asked what they were carrying long poles for (as had thought they were rapellers – Kinlochleven has a rapelling center). They were fun to watch and talk to. Scots – I like them well.
Tomorrow promises to be a long, strenuous day, but it will then be done.
Of all the days so far, this one has had the most beautiful scenery.
Heading out of Tyndrum in the morning, I stopped in at Brodie’s minimart. I set my Diet Coke on the counter to pay and said to the VERY elderly gentleman working there: “it’s my only bad habit”. He peered through thick glasses with huge watery eyes and after what seemed like a very long time said: “ohhhh, I doen beLIEVE ya”. Pretty funny.
Met more nice people along the way, many of whom are are camping or staying in the mini-pods at Glencoe about 2 km before Kingshouse. I’d stopped at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel for coffee and a delightful young lady was working in the cafe area (they have Dior Cherie liquid soap in the women’s bathroom there, if that tells you anything about what kind of place the Bridge of Orchy Hotel is…. it probably looked odd to see someone walking the moors smelling her hands repeatedly). I told the young lady working in the cafe that I’d heard the next (2.3 km) stretch was more difficult, to which she said that it wasn’t difficult at all (it was a little steep up to the peak where there’s quite a panorama. Some military jets were flying close doing super-low practice maneuvers through the valleys – flying “under the radar” – which was quite a sight). She said that she and her girlfriends walked over the peak and back frequently to go to the pub at The Inveroran Hotel, their nearest neighboring pub. It was a charming thought that they would make their way there and back across the moors in a group. The young Romanian man running the pub at the Inveroran Hotel said the same thing, and that employees from both and the new Kingshouse Hotel visited each other back and forth. A bit like at least the late-night bar-and-restaurant workers do here, but without the moors and exertion in between:0)).
There were more runners running these mountains…..in the onward direction, possibly continuing on after the Highland Fling 53-mile ultramarathon to practice on the path beyond Tyndrum that the upcoming full 96-mile West Highland Way ultramarathon will be on. Amazing humans.
Lunch was excellent – smoked Scottish salmon with a horseradish slaw and arugula salad, and then a round of warm goats cheese on arugula. There were two Americans there – Ed and Charlie – who were military pilots currently stationed in Africa. It was a chatty lunch. I bought a dessert to take with, and one of the other men from Birmingham UK who have been on the same trail stages as myself brought me a Taggerts chocolate-covered marshmellow because he thought I’d like to try one. It was very good and made even better by eating it sitting on a rock overlooking a vast moor.
A second set of men told me they’d used me as their “pacer” on the really strenuous day between Inversnaid and Inverarnan because they thought I walked fast and that if they could still see me up ahead they were keeping a good pace. This was nice to hear. I’d never heard of a “pacer” until I overheard two people running like lightening side-by-side on the treadmills in Glasgow talking about one “pacing” the other.
Cheeky bottle opener
I rolled into Kingshouse Hotel around 4pm, kind of wishing I’d booked at Glencoe instead, which is 2 km before and set up to be much more suitable for hikers and would have been preferable for being among others in a less upscale setting and with the hike in common. Kingshouse Hotel has only been open as a large, new hotel since February and they may be getting their processes ironed out still (they were more a small inn before). The new place cost 12 Million GBP, and it looks it. It was 5 pm before my room was ready (an hour’s wait into the evening for an expensive hotel can seem kind of unreasonable after hiking 30.4K), and later at dinnertime in the open lounge area, after ordering, my wait staff simply forgot about me among larger groups seemingly there as car tourists driving Scotland. Not really hiker-friendly or solo-traveler-friendly at the moment. But the place is new, trendy, sleek and spacious, the views are spectacular, and it was wonderful to have a comfortable room and a hot bath in a deep soaker tub.
I’ll let these pictures do the talking about this day.
The Haggis I tried the evening before wasn’t bad. Not something I’d go out of my way to order, but ok. Like the oily ground meat that it is. The breakfast menu had a “full Scottish breakfast” featured, so I ordered that: an egg, “bacon”, a round of black sausage (which I think was actually Haggis served differently), beans and a piece of grilled potato bread. Protein!
The symbol on top is supposed to be a Thistle, symbol of Scotland.
Today felt more like a Camino day because a rhythm has been established. I’ve gotten back into the groove of solitary walking among the loose band of familiar people here and there and of making the effort to have some exchange with other new people. A little engagement with others helps the whole thing feel like a connected flow rather than a completely solitary endeavor.
Lambing season
The scenery was good today, and the trail mostly moderate uphill. I was glad for the short day and also to discover that I have a locator on my app that got me back on track after a missed signpost. Here’s a picture of one style of gate out of many. Only one upright 2-legged creature can maneuver through at a time, thus letting people pass through but not livestock. And one of the many stiles.
The Brits I’d met hiking the last bit into Inveroran found me in the dining room sitting alone and they invited me to join their table. They were were Gavin and Mark, and they’d met another named Mike who was at the table as well. The Brits are so civilized and such good conversationalists. They were interesting to talk with even if care was required to avoid the little land mines of differences in belief. Two seemed to favor open borders, the third less so. We spoke of American and British comedians and many things. They were delightful.
They were among the loose string of hikers yesterday, so we all reconnected. They parted for their train in Crianlarich at the halfway point and will finish another time.
Into the deep, dark woods
This looked to me like a swamp creature or maybe the unseen thing from the Blair Witch Project. I think it’s upturned tree roots that pulled moss up with it.
I found a panoramic place to sit and have lunch.
I woke up after a few hours’ sleep this morning with the Casting Crowns’ Peace On Earth album’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” playing in my head: “In despair I bowed my head. There is no peace on earth I said. For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill toward men (….). Then ringing, singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day. A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, goodwill to men. Open up your heart and hear them”.
Met two French ladies by a whitewater river and had a good Franglais conversation with them. They’re from Brest and they don’t recommend the canal walk to there for its being tediously the same the whole way. Saw them again in Tyndrum – most are staying here except a few who’d staged a little differently and made the additional 7 miles to Bridge of Orchy.
Under the A82
Seems much is expressed in miles here instead of kilometers.
I’m here at the Tyndrum Inn in a tiny, narrow individual room. Perfectly comfortable. Had curry in the pub where there was supposed to be WiFi….but there really isn’t ……so I had to trigger another 24 hour charge for cellular data. I seem to have heard the gamut of excuses across several countries for why WiFi is advertised, but not really working.
There are motorcycle racing trials going on along the A82 that runs along this section of the West Highland Way, so there is some intermittent motorcycle noise. The town was full of motorcyclists last night. At least 5 languages were being spoken in the pub last night and many businesses in this small Scottish area seem to be owned and operated by people originally from the Middle East.
I even have a guard outside my room.
Today will be 30 km, the longest day of this particular hike, but it promises to be beautiful and there’s especially good lodging at the end of it.
They started at 6 a.m. in Milngavie (technically a suburb of Glasgow), which is 53 miles from their finish in Tyndrum. They ran up and down Conic Hill (a mountain – everything here is called a “hill”), and then much later, the 6.5 miles of nightmare terrain between Inversnaid and Inverarnan….in all-day rain, mud, and cold under 45F/7C. And kept on going bounding up and flinging themselves down countless steep hills and rocky trails to Tyndrum.
Today, the day after the marathon, I was hiking their last stretch and, unbelievably, at least one of them was on the trail running BACK from Tyndrum. I remember him from the race because he was striking looking, and a young woman who passed later looked to be probably doing the same thing.
A woman on the support team in Inversnaid said that many in this race were running FOR PRACTICE for the upcoming West Highland Way 96 mile ultramarathon from Milngavie to Fort William, which is, in fact, the entire West Highland Way. I wish I could convey what kind of feat this is and how incredible these people are. Maybe the pictures will help, although ascents and descents don’t show up well in photos.
After looking a bit online, it turns out that prior Iron Mans, prior Triathlons, and prior road ultramarathons won’t qualify one to be accepted for this race – because the terrain is so extreme on this one.
The first of the front runners passed at 10:00 a.m. and was a fearsome specimen. In fact, he was perhaps 20 minutes ahead of the next few of these people whose bodies seem to run like machines. That was John Hammond (“Carnethy Running Club”), who did win this race (the report said he stayed out front from the first few steps out of Milngavie). A Salomon runner, Beth Pascal, came in 9th and was the first place in women’s (again, evidently). I remember her streaking by too. Amazingly, only one person seemed to have really wiped out on this absolutely treacherous 6.5 mile stretch, and the people running by with the information said they weren’t sure if she was even hurt. I asked how someone would be evacuated given the terrain and the woman called back “By Boot” – since the rocky path runs close to Loch Lomond for much of the section, by boat is really the only way, and some of the trail is far above the lake.
I had odd urges to run after them and another woman hiking who runs also said she had that same urge. Maybe it’s a primitive thing to want to run with a flow of other humans. Like a chase drive or a wish to be part of the pack.
They weren’t all young either. There were many seemingly in their 60’s. About 1/8 were women. They ran covered in mud. They scrambled boulders and up and down impossible rocks. They ran bleeding (“it looks worse than it is”). They smiled big smiles and thanked each hiker who got out of the way for them (that’s hundreds of polite people who’d already run 30+ miles). I stopped saying “you guys are amazing” after a few responded “uh doen FEEL so amazin’ right now” (…….before somebody said “uh doen FEEL so foukin amazin’ right now”…). One smiled and said “ya bin standin’ there fer 4 HOURS, have yeh?” (because there were periodically long onslaughts of runners coming through). So many smiles and “thank you’s” and “much appreciated’s” and “cheers” and even well-wishes for our hikes while these incredible humans Just. Kept. Running. I am in awe of them. And one of them was Frances Warnes, the woman who owns and operates the Kip in the Kirk B&B/hostel in Drymen (stay at her lovely place if you can!).
And yes. Quite a few of them ran in kilts, both men and women, and there was a tam o’shanter or two as well. I was hoping that the kilt wearers wore them with underwear because it was freezing cold and slipping was not infrequent.
Although only about 24k, it took 8.5 hours with a stop at the rather elegant Inversnaid Hotel for coffee and “Brussels Paté” (which tasted suspiciously like basic Braunschweiger) with Scottish Oat Cakes and jam. Hikers were to leave all gear and shoes and outerwear in a large vestibule, so people were padding around this rather elegant dining room in socks. There is also a nice area with lake views just off the trailside entrance with mud room for those who have brought bag lunches with them.
Inversnaid was a check-point for the Ultramarathoners running through today. It’s already slow-going to pick one’s way over (or literally climb over) large rocks and to try to avoid sinking into the mud everywhere, plus it was necessary to stand aside for the 750+ West Highland Way Ultramarathon runners. I didn’t mind a bit and I would not have missed the experience of seeing these amazing athletes. They were unfailingly polite and good-humored (“excuse me”, “thanks ever so much”, “cheers”). I’ll put that aspect of the day in another post, as it really was awe-inspiring to watch these people of all ages flinging themselves down and bounding up mile after mile of rocky ascents and descents that the rest of us were slowly picking our ways through and hoping not to break our necks. After Inversnaid this really is a difficult section in all-day rain and endless mud and rock. The guidebook calls it “notoriously” difficult, but the worst was the rain and cold. Toward the end it all got wearing, but thinking of these athletes pounding out yet 11 more miles beyond my stopping point or so made me feel like I had to at least get to Inverarnan with a minimum of inward whining. Or, I guess here it’s called “whinging”
Along Loch Lomond
There are almost as many beautiful waterfalls on this stretch as ultramarathon runners (ok, that’s an exaggeration), and eventually my camera battery became worryingly low from taking pictures of runners, terrain, Loch Lomond and the waterfalls. I decided not to bring my heavy-ish battery pack this time and wish I had not left it behind.
A guy waiting at the end of one of the many wooden bridges had his camera pointed at me as I crossed the one-person-wide bridge, intending to take a picture of the runner coming across the bridge not far behind me. I joked with him that I had to look behind me because I was pretty sure he wasn’t taking a picture of me. He assured me that he’d taken a picture of me and then winked at me. Flirting is definitely not dead in Great Britain like it is in the States.
Wild mountain goats barely concerned at all by the steady stream of runners and hikers.
Ishey, the young Basque woman, was going on to Crianlarich today, and it’s good that she’s a powerhouse because she had about 7 more miles to go beyond Inverarnan. We won’t see each other again.
For those here by the tag, the first part of the walk is peaceful and the trail very good. In the forest in the first hour out of Rowardennan there’s a sign indicating to go left for the WHW, but that’s the first half’s rocky, difficult lakeside path and is not recommended in weather like today (and you won’t miss a thing by keeping to the high road). The second half of the day’s rock path is unavoidable. The ultramarathon was following the High Road for this first part, which is the recommended route now anyway, and is just a matter of staying on the main path instead of turning left at the sign.
I saw someone from the hostal the night before exiting a bothy on the trail, so decided to have a look inside. A bothy is a very primitive hut that is usually for hikers to use to sleep over instead of camping, but a group of 9 local men were there on a weekend away from their wives. They had an inviting fire going and an elderly man pulled me up a chair next to the fire and recommended hanging up my wet clothes to dry, but they wanted me to stay for drinks, seemed to be well on their way to a rowdy night, and once it was clear what was going on and that it was yet another 1.5 miles to Inverarnan, I made my excuses and kept on. Pity because that fire was lovely, but I got to see the inside of a bothy (basically a dirt floor, a stone fireplace, inside clotheslines and a few pallets here and there).
Drovers Inn – “Best Scottish Pub of the Year – 1706”
I arrived at the Drovers Inn in Inverarnan after meeting two pleasant Brit hikers on the last bit in. The Drovers Inn is an historic landmark and full of rustic curiosities in the main public areas. And by that I mean dark and timbered and crumbly with a reception room full of stuffed wildlife. Kind of creepy-quirky.
By then I was probably getting hypothermic. I had on 4 layers including raincoat, but the coat isn’t evidently the kind that will keep one dry in an all-day rain. Everything underneath had been damp since before Inversnaid. I slipped once, fortunately not at one of several 8″ wide rock ledge spots where a mis-step would have resulted in a plung into the Loch far below, and I was covered in mud. Gloves were too wet to be of use. Scarf was soaked. I was shaking trying to pull off the layers of wet clothes, and couldn’t write or maneuver the locks well here at the hotel because my hands were frozen. But a very long hot shower was just the thing, and once dried and dressed in warm clothes, I felt human again. It would be smart to invest in an Altus poncho since it rains so much here.
The Brits I’d met just before arriving found me sitting alone in the dining room and invited me to join them. It’s as if there are no strangers in this country, and the art of conversation is thriving, especially at pubs. I managed to sidestep the political discussions. They wanted to know if I was aware that the Brits consider Trump to be a clown. I told them “yes, painfully” and eventually they stopped focusing on politics.
Nice staff member in kilt. I really liked the Drovers Inn and their friendly staff. At night on weekends they have music, but it isn’t Trad. There was dancing, though, and a wide variety of people all seemed to be having fun in the small, crowded, rustic pub from the 1700’s. I was glad to have a room in one of the buildings across the road.
There’s little to no rain expected tomorrow, and although it will be no warmer, it will be a short day planned that day because there’s a 30k day following.
Rain all day, cold to the bone, wet, hiking up and down huge hills on mud and rock, left my hiking pole leaning against a stump miles back (after saying to myself “pay attention, or you’ll leave that pole behind….), found I’d taken Kip in the Kirk’s room key with me and there are no post offices for days to mail it back, ravenous/can’t seem to get enough to eat, soaked and frozen on arrival to find the hostel without heat in 39 degrees Fahrenheit. A huge furry spider crawled out from under my heaped clothes in the tiny shower pod, soggy potato and cod cakes for dinner, the dryer tokens weren’t working and to complete things, got locked in a toilet compartment with another rusted lock (and evidently someone after me did as well because now the toilet is closed with an “out of service” sign, leaving only one toilet for all of the women on the ground floor….). But unlike in France, it wasn’t the middle of the night when I got stuck, and didn’t take 20 minutes to get out. After that, finally, things started turning around for the better. Maybe it happened with the sticky toffee pudding for dessert.
Rowardennan Hostel
The shower was hot, there was a wall blow-dryer (luxury!), they have some food items for sale (I bought 2 of practically everything plus cooked breakfast and a bagged lunch for tomorrow’s remote hike), the staff is young and friendly, the other hostel-stayers are relaxed, pleasant adults from all over the world. There’s a real zen garden out back, we’re bang on the shores of Loch Lomond with near-magical views, they HAVE a clothes-dryer and the staff fixed the token problem. Mercifully, another of them also got the heat fixed. “Ishey”, the young Basque woman, is here, I’ve met a handful of other nice people, and the staff is calling me by my first name. And that sticky toffee pudding……wow.
I’d taken dirty clothes into the shower with me to wash once the dryer problem was sorted. Happiness is an armload of hot laundry right out of the dryer and knowing that I don’t have to hike in damp clothes tomorrow – the weather forecast says rain and maximum temperature of 45F.
The alternative exit from Kip in the Kirk guesthouse in Drymen (to avoid a long backtrack) wasn’t terribly clear, but with two other Brit hikers, we figured it out.
Today was the border where Lowlands meets Highlands. The landscape changed soon after Drymen (“Drimmen”) into pine forest and fog, like a scene from Twin Peaks in the American northwest. Then suddenly, rounding a curve, there was Loch Lomond. Beautiful in the fog and surrounded by hills.
In case you thought you might like to go Hostelling…..
It rained most of the day. When the temperature dropped for the second half of the day walking along Loch Lomond, it took 5 layers and a scarf and puffy-vest.
Lounge at Rowardennan Hostel which, after an uncomfortable initial few hours has turned into a delightful place to be. View over Loch Lomond with low clouds.
Conic Hill was next. It was slow going, but the view from the top almost made up for the long slog up. Ishey had gone the extra trek to the higher peak, come back down, and then decided to go back up, not satisfied with the challenge of doing it only once. There were super athletes out training for the 53-mile ultramarathon from Drymen to Tyndrum tomorrow…..by running up and down Conic Hill – which is essentially an hour straight up and another straight down down on mud and gravel and rock. Ishey said she was jealous of them being out running. She signed herself up for the upcoming Dublin marathon last night.
At the other side of Conic Hill is Balmaha, a tiny and quaint village on Loch Lomond that seems to be full of tourists who hike up Conic Hill and back down for the view and then go home. The second half of the day was along the lake, along quiet paths and backroads, and up hundreds of steep, rock “stairs”. It seemed to have been an extremely long day, but everyone is so nice that it’s all fine.
Thanks for visiting! Next up: Rowardennan to Inveraran and the Drovers Inn for Saturday night music, a good meal, and a nice, private room.
Or rather, Mull-GUY to Drimmen. And here’s another trail-side Scottish pronunciation head-scratcher. You may think you know how to pronounce this, but it’s almost guaranteed that if we heard the way it’s pronounced locally, it would be barely recognizable. But traveling in a English-speaking country is still a relief.
Glasgow’s Queen Street Station is a madhouse during rush hours, but quiet on the morning train to Milngavie. Milngavie is a charming Victorian era village and the last suburb before the countryside starts in earnest.
At the concession stand at the train station at the starting point for the West Highland Way were two nice men, one of whom said: “Might yeh be takin’ a long WALK today?”. To which I said that I must have all the telltale signs. To which he nodded and said: ” And the ACCENT TOO”. I apologized for the accent, we all had a good laugh, and he gave me a card for a website with extra information for the trail.
The signage from Milngavie train station to the start of the West Highland Way is very straightforward. There were about 8 of us starting out from the same train arrival and a small group said they were doing it in 3.5 days. That’s 45 km/day and they weren’t German or Swiss superhikers and they weren’t cycling. Yikes.
I’ve read a couple of bloggers who skipped this first day because it’s less panoramic/mountainous, but in that it’s idyllic with its streamside, then woods, then countryside and first look at the upcoming hills, I wouldn’t have wanted to have missed it. And although the AccuWeather forecast the day before said rain, it was very cool and sunny until after reaching the first night’s stop in Drymen. Then it poured.
About halfway through the day, a young man from Santa Bárbara that I’d met just off the train came by and we walked the rest of the day together, stopping at the quaint little Beech Tree cafe with its animals in displays: ponies, sheep, a goat, rabbits, birds, and there was a playground for kids. Later a young Basque woman named something like “Ishey” joined us. Very interesting, informative conversation, both of them very experienced world travelers and marathon runners. And clearly I need to study up on the history of Scotland.
Clearing commemorated for being a gathering place when during a bad economic depression people came from the surrounding countryside to sit together around a fire at night to visit and dance and tell stories. These meeting places were not uncommon, often at crossroads. It sounds like an enchanting experience, but times were likely very hard.
It’s spring lambing time, and there were herds of sheep along the way with some tiny lambs. The farmers are very protective during this time, and dogs aren’t allowed on the trail. I hope to see some Highland Hairy Cattle when the actual Highlands are reached.
Dumgoyne Hill
This is the most primitive and easy-to-negotiate of about 10 different kinds of gates …. the weight of the large stone (on right) re-closes the gate after hikers pull it open and pass through.
Landscaping business owners’ home on trail before Killearn Road.
The walk was easy with a noticeable slow incline along the way. Drymen is a tiny, charming crossroads village and I have a pretty room in a renovated church. There are restaurants that look inviting and are recommended, but having been with others for hours today, I was socialized-out and brought back prepared food from the little village grocery to eat in the room.
Tomorrow will be Loch Lomond and the start of the Highlands. And likely rainy and cold. Please stay tuned.
It’s a gritty little city with a ton to recommend it. Very alive and engaged. Completely unpretentious. Art everywhere.
And to Laurel: The only fried food I’ve seen anywhere here is Pakora. The food is fantastic! (But I have yet to try Haggis…..).
In Cumbric, the original language spoken in Glasgow and related to modern-day Welsh, “Glasgow” means “dear green place”.
The first thing I noticed off the connecting bus to Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station from Edinburgh’s airport was that all pedestrian road crossings and crosswalk warning lights seem to be totally optional and disregarded. Being a bit of a juvenile delinquent, I lost no time joining the near-constant pedestrian hoards crossing in the middle of the streets, feeling terribly local and audacious for doing so, and so far haven’t been mowed over as a result of forgetting the “look right, stay left” rule. People who can drive well on the “wrong” side of the road seem to me to have superpowers (I can do it, but find it nerve-racking), and when hiking on the few backroad stretches today on the first hiking day, I had to concentrate to remember to choose the “facing oncoming traffic” side on seemingly the “wrong” side of the road (“but at least she died doing something she loved”….).
First thing off the bus from Edinburgh’s airport (which could hardly have been easier), I redistributed items brought to make a gym bag and dropped off my backpack at CitizenM (too early for check-in) and met their desk staff, one of whom was “on loaner” from the new CitizenM in Paris, at which I did NOT stay last time through Paris because it was priced about 3X higher than Glasgow’s. We had a nice little exchange in French and I was curious to know if he’d been there when Notre Dame burned last week, but didn’t want to bring it up. Paris, and France in general has been beleaguered these last few years. It makes me sick and sad and angry.
CitizenM, Glasgow
Glasgow seems to be hyper-security-minded, and getting in and out of even the gym involved extensive registration for a one-day pass and requires PIN numbers on entering and exiting via locking revolving-door vestibules that will contain only one person at a time.
At the gym, there was an older man INSIDE the women’s locker room in an open changing area presumably waiting for his female companion. There was a stocky, shaved-headed woman with a huge tattoo on her scalp chatting amiably with a suburban housewife-looking lady. Everyone seems forthright, to listen well, to be nonjudgmental, and to be actually interested in what’s being said to them by anyone and everyone. The “F word” is used in most sentences in almost any overheard conversation, seemingly being the adjective-of-choice for nearly every noun and oddly to the exclusion of any of the other words in a competent potty-mouth’s lexicon. Glaswegians seem to have their own pronunciation – not “foookin'” or “feckin'” as one might expect, but rather like the word “should” or “could”. See what important tidbits you can learn on this blog?
So…….I’m running a treadmill first thing at the aforementioned PureGym on Bath Street wondering why, out of three floors of treadmills and exercise equipment, the other people around were all only walking on their treadmills. I wondered if fitness were less of a thing in Scotland (I would later be amused at having had this thought…..Scotsmen of all ages mostly all seem to be in shape……sometimes having a rather sharp-edged/fierce quality and tending to be rather good-looking as well….and, for a change, I did barbell squats not alone, but with a small herd of other females, which was fun). As time went on, I began to have a sneaking sense that I was in the middle of a slowly-assembling flash mob of fit people when suddenly, yelling and music that was gym-rattling, heart-poundingly loud erupted from a side-room. Many of the people around me were totally indifferent to the music and the yelling, but had probably seen or participated in this before. There in this massive studio that was sunken down about 5 steps (and thus providing an overview) were perhaps 50 or more (a sea of) incredibly fit people of all ages doing a super-high-intensity routine involving switching on command to the next equipment or task. Some had blue hair. Some had bright orange or yellow hair. Some were males, some were females. Some were likely in their 50’s and some were young. All were hyper-focused, deadly serious, and blasting it out. An intense…… make that FEROCIOUS trainer prowled among them like a lion tamer, and it was a thing of incredible energy and beauty to watch. Maybe it was jet lag, but I stood there with my mouth hanging open, stunned. The staff member who had helped me break into this fortress was assisting the trainer running it, and he gave a smile at my amazement. So much for wondering if the Scots are as interested in fitness as the Americans (more about this later – the Highland Fling 53-mile Ultramarathon).
You’ve perhaps seen the CitizenM pictures from the last post, so I won’t post more beyond the ones above, but if you can stay in one (they’re now in many of the world’s largest cities), they’re upbeat places to stay and have 24/7 bar/food service and great staff.
Glasgow has some interesting architecture, old and new. They’re pretty international at this point, it seems, and are said to have one of the best medical schools in Great Britain. And I could listen to the beautiful way they speak English all day (although sometimes a phrase is unrecognizable as English, and I have to ask them to repeat a few words, which they’re not all that happy about doing…..)
Architectural elements preserved and displayed in the crypt of Glasgow’s cathedral. Oldest piece of stonework from 1197.
Glasgow’s cathedral and the hillside necrópolis beyond are quite something to see. The cathedral has a crypt below named “Blackadder Alley”, and since I know very little of Scottish history, I asked the docent what the word Blackadder signified, since I’d heard the word used related to something vaguely British before and was assuming there wasn’t an alley full of black snakes down there. She said that Blackadder was an archbishop….. but that the word was more commonly known from a TV series that Monte Python did. The Brits have all the good TV…..
Other than the above, I had dinner at an Indian restaurant called Masala Twist where some awfully good food was had (better than the food that one of today’s hiking partners had the evening before in a restaurant named “Kama Sutra”).
The rest of my too-short time in Glasgow was spent having pleasant interactions with locals and, always a favorite, wandering the streets of the old city-center.
Next up: Milngavie to Drymen on the West Highland Way.
This vintage Canadian Pacific Railroad poster hangs in a prominent place in my home and its message occupies a prominent place in my life. Today I’m off to hike the West Highland Way in Scotland and do a bit of sightseeing.
Airport Art, Philadelphia
Other than having a look at the CitizenM pictures below, you might want to skip this post unless you’re here by the tags and would like some logistical information related to getting to the starting point. But don’t miss the next one about Glasgow itself. Great, gritty, hospitable town full of people who are both tough and kind.
Edinburgh’s airport is small, and word has it that Glasgow’s is small as well. There’s an ATM at the exit after Baggage Claim, but it was easier to have taken GBPs along – AAA in the States can get them through Travelex within a couple of days. That made it unnecessary to stand in line behind a newly-arrived hoard of other jet-lagged people to get initial cash. Most places are taking debit cards here, although if yours is not signed on the back, they might want your passport or something else to verify your signature.
One of many street murals in a town full of art.
The CityLink bus from EDI to Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Terminal leaves on the :25 and the :55 all day/twice per hour. There are no ticket vendors either by a staffed desk or automated. You pay on board (12.50 GBP) or use their “contactless” (app) payment option. The trip is about 38 miles and seemed to take forever. The bus terminal in Glasgow is central and busy – about one block from the northern edge of city center.
A ticket can be gotten a day ahead, if you like, for the short ride to Milngavie (pronounced Mull-GUY…..). It’s the last stop on that particular line and unless you get a ticket directly from a ScotRail employee with a ticketing device on him/her, you have to go to the staffed ScotRail ticket office across from the entrance if using the Queen Street Station. I spent time on the ticket vending machines in the central hall on the ground level, but they don’t include Milngavie, possibly because the trains leave from the Lower Level platforms. The departure times aren’t on the main ground floor digital boards either. There’s a second, specifically Lower Level train entrance on the back side of the Station, and there may be vending machines down that rabbit hole, but if you go through the main gates, you’ll need to have your ticket already to get down there. For Milngavie (terminus for this train), go to Platform 8. It’s all well marked and clear once you’re past the main ticket gates and below ground level.
There are two PureGyms in center-city – one on Hope Street and one on Bath Street. They’re 3-level chain fitness centers along the lines of Planet Fitness, but without the amenities and with a no nonsense level of security to get in and out. In fact, most places in Glasgow seem to be highly security-minded. Getting a day pass from the lobby vending machines isn’t as easy as it’s made out to be, but once accomplished, you have a 24 hour period to use the gym – for 6.99 GBP or roughly 9 USD as of this writing. More about this place next post…..impressive.
There are several Mountain Warehouses and other outfitters in center-town. I’d planned on getting a hiking pole there instead of paying $120 round-trip to check mine, as some are able to get through TSA with hiking poles as carry-ones and some aren’t. Since I’ve had trouble checking them also (e.g. them getting lost with my backpack in transit and another time arriving completely demolished and with pieces missing….), I had thought to just buy one here for the worst day in the Highlands as have much better thigh strength this year, but at the last minute decided to give taking one a try. I had no trouble getting mine through in Philly collapsed entirely and well-secured to the loops and straps on my pack. It may be that collapsed and openly visible poles are less of an issue for TSA (Stateside, that is).
CitizenM’s are full of quirky art.
CitizenM was an excellent place to stay for a bit of a splurge starting out at 89 GBP, and I’m told that the Ibis is also nice – less at 59 GBP.
Two out of several common areas, CitizenM, Glasgow
And one last thing: if you’re going toward the end of April and think you won’t need lots of warm clothing and outerwear/rain gear, you may want to reconsider. It can be very windy and cold in the mornings, evenings, nights, and whenever the sun is behind the clouds. It rains a good bit here. Even the Glaswegians were wearing puffy-jackets these last two days and bracing themselves against the wind and cold at times.
Evidently, the rooms over the router at the Albergue had WiFi because everyone on that end of the albergue was hanging out in their bunks on their iPhones this morning. I walked the port around to the central square and found a crush of backpackers waiting for the 08:20 bus to Santiago in front of the Municipal where the bus parada is. I was going to get on, but when the bus arrived and the throng pressed to load backpacks into the cargo hold (huge cargo holds that were bursting with packs), it seemed like the whole thing was going to be completely miserable. It wasn’t a double-decker bus this time, and there was no way all those people were going to fit without being sardines for 2+ hours. I grabbed my pack back out and headed for the Hippie place on the square. I’d planned to have their vegetable curry the evening before, but they were closed and I had to scrape by with fresh seafood at a lively place on a port-side plaza. Tough life, ey? Finisterre’s marina área reminded me of Porto in Portugal where my sister and I started out on the Portuguese route last September.
The 09:45 autobus to Santiago turned out to be much less crowded. The Municipals kick people out before 08:00, which probably explains the crowds for the 08:20. Waiting turned out to be a very good idea.
Praza Obradoiro (“workshop plaza”) in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. Imagine the sculptors and stone masons working there for hundreds of years.
My goals for the day were to buy some souvenirs for others and be filled up by this joyous place. I think I’ve seen all the museums at least once, but there may be a gallery or two that I’ve missed. Will hope to have some of the best gazpacho on the planet at Bierzo Enxebre, and get to the Pilgrim Welcome House to possibly donate my hiking poles, to possibly drop off laundry, and to meet Faith, a very nice woman who helps moderate the main online forum and who also works there at the Pilgrim Welcome House. The airport in Santiago won’t let hiking poles through as carry-ons, so I might check my pack, although I’ll then be screwed in London and New York if they lose it. Like they have before.
They’ve finished slowly sandblasting after several years of work. It used to be a mottled dark brown and amber color that I was fond of, and which showed up the baroque features perhaps a little better, but this is good too. It’s all good.
I was going to say that the best part is walking the twisty streets, having endless and varied food options, watching the newly-completed hikers arrive, the street musicians, the city and church officials about, and just being a part of the unique, joyous, proud, 800-year old place. The cathedral and other monuments are spectacular. But so far the best part of many great parts today was actually running into Nicole again on the way to the Pilgrim’s Office to try to get a stamp. She was talking to two other Americans on a seminary trip walking the Norte. It was a happy reunion, and we’ll spend some time together later.
Praza das Praterias, “Silversmith’s square”, or possibly Praza do Quintana adjoining. I felt honored that an ?Italian? woman who was obviously excited to be in Santiago asked me to take a picture of her with the “fountain of the 4 horses”. She then offered to return the favor (I’m embarrassed to say that for a second I worried that it was an iPhone-stealing scam because evidently I’m just that cynical!). It really was fun to have such a trusting exchange with a total stranger. But that happens all over the Caminos and in fact, doing these does seem to make better Humans out of us all. Maybe someday this will again be a rite of passage as pilgrimage has likely been in the past. Pilgrimage has been a part of most of the world’s major religions for thousands of years, likely for its transformative effects.
At the Pilgrim Office where Pilgrims/hikers line up with their Credencials in hand to apply for their Compostelas (the certificate in Latin that you get for completing), the security guy (they don’t get nicer than these guys) for some reason thought they would give me a Compostela for walking different segments of 4 Caminos because I’d hiked over 500 km total this time. I told him that there was a rule about doing the last 100 km continuously and that since I have several Compostelas, I was only seeking a stamp to finish off this time’s Credencial. His first language wasn’t English, and my Spanish is rudimentary at best. He went and got an official who came out and explained the “last 100k continuous” rule, so again I explained that I wasn’t seeking another Compostela (nor did I want to wait in a 2 hour line even if they had changed the rules), and that I was just hoping for a stamp. He smiled and said he could take care of that, and in 60 seconds I’d “closed out” my journey and had my last stamp. On the way out, I smiled and said thanks and blew a little kiss to the security guard who had made life a lot easier by helping…..and seem to have embarrassed him. Like I said…..committing inter-cultural faux pas regularly, like a good American traveler.
View from room at Pension Libredon right on the Praza Fonseca, a block from the Cathedral. The French door-windows are open and I can hear the street music and the steady din of lunchtime. The music and the din will likely go on until the wee hours, but I also have thick shutters that block it all out at will. It all seems like luxury at this point.
They no longer do the individual pilgrim acknowledgements because we are now far too many (sometimes in peak season there have been over 2,000 registering their Caminos at the Pilgrim’s office in a day), and many of us who already have a collection of Compostela’s don’t bother to wait in line for another one. So the actual number completing is likely considerably higher. It is now difficult to get a room even 2 months ahead in high season, including the designated pilgrim rooms at San Martín Pinario (on the 4th floor, very Spartan old monks’ cells, and you don’t even have to share the room with the old monks). Even the huge Seminario Menor on the hill was completo long in advance.
I should probably mention that I’m not a Catholic. Or religious. But I have great respect for what religions can give we miserable Humans, and am glad some of them exist to deepen and elevate our lives with their history, stories, art, rituals, teaching, inspiration and beauty.
Here’s a good one told by nephew Brennan: “Why do Sea Gulls fly over the Sea? (Silence). Because if they flew over the Bay, they’d be Bagels”
The Empresa Freire autobús was right on time this morning, and I was the only rider from Sobrado dos Monxes until Arzua.
This has been a journey filled with happy people. We are all fortunate indeed to be able to roam the earth and experience the things that are best in life. Nature, novelty, beauty, kindness. And as travel goes: both much cheaper and more meaningful than the usual tourist tracks.
The bus got to Santiago with just enough time to run upstairs to find that Monbus doesn’t have a taquilla at which to buy a ticket. I’m assuming that there is a machine somewhere, but I couldn’t find it on the fly. The driver let me buy a ticket from him, so I made the 09:00 to Finisterre. The decision between Finisterre and Muxia was made by the convenience of the bus schedule, the abundance of places to stay in Finisterre, and by the fact that although I would usually opt for the more remote/less touristy option, I may have had my fill of remote for awhile.
I’m glad to have decided to come to Finisterre, and it’s all more than I’d thought it would be. I’ve been to the Finisterre in coastal Brittany in France…..same deal. Finis Terre = End of the Earth to people at a time when there was no information that there was anything more beyond.
Glad to have had dinner at one of the open-air port-side places…….Bacalao Gallego. Glad to have walked the truly beautiful coastal walk out the 3.5 km to the lighthouse and then back. That alone was worth coming here for. There are a few Backpacker Central places in Galicia and the Faro (lighthouse) is one of them, although there are busloads of tourists at the lighthouse as well.
Bacalao Gallego (Galician-style cod – capers, olives, in a thin tomato broth).
This is the extension to the sea after finishing the pilgrimage to visit the bones of Sant Iago (interesting albeit rather fanciful history). It was probably a route to the sea used by the Pagans/Celts long before Christianity, and Romans followed the Milky Way (Via Lactea) westward on this route to the sea. Eventually, the route became known as “Campos Stella” or “field of stars”. Pilgrims would pick up a seashell to take home as proof of having made the journey……and then walk back home from as far away as Northern Europe. The Knights Templar provided escorts. It helped in some way reinforce the Christian heritage of the country at a time when Spain had been invaded by Muslims. Santiago do Compostela has a simple, well done museum of the world history of religious pilgrimage. Of course, there were other draws rather than piety: adventure, a righteous reason to leave your village for a very long time, food, drink and prostitutes the whole way. Just like now, there were all sorts of motivations for doing this.
I’m at the Albergue de la Paz, charmed by the smile of the guy soliciting visitors carrying backpacks fresh off the Monbus. He said a habitacion was possible, but it’s really a 4-bed bunk room above an alley that they’re renting me for individual use (a “privado”). It’s true that there’s WiFi, but only in the small common room, and since that’s also the dining room table, and a large group wanted to have dinner there, that ended internet access for awhile. But I’ve enjoyed hearing the kids play in the alley watched over by their abuelo. Even though it’s objectively cold, there are kids out jumping off the stone piers to splash around in the bay. It was probably better not to agonize about a pension stay vs an albergue because I was checked in, set up, had a little space to myself, and was out exploring Finisterre before noon. I knocked on the communal bathroom door to see if it was occupied and a young Asian kid opened the door in only a towel and a smile. Most everyone is friendly. Or friendly enough. And my laundry got dry hanging in the sun on the clothesline right outside my window. All that is needed except maybe that WiFi part, and although the mattress is hard and lumpy, I’ve laid the extra beds’ quilts under the sheet to soften things and will likely sleep in layered clothes yet again because …. it’s blasted cold. On June 27.
Here’s a picture for you in case you thought you wanted to rush off and try albergue living:
There is no curfew at this albergue and everyone has front door keys, so I’m hoping things don’t get noisy later. Someone already tried the door handle to my room for some unknown reason. There’s no sense in trying to turn in early…….it doesn’t get dark until after 10:45 pm. Spain time.
Painted ceiling at the Albergue
I’m looking forward to Santiago tomorrow and am booked into a pension very close to the Cathedral that promises to be very noisy. Which will be just fine because Santiago de Compostela is one of my favorite places on the planet to be.
Praza Obradoiro (“workshop plaza”), in front if the newly sandblasted cathedral, is on Webcam 24/7. There’s also a stork’s nest cam nearby. Just in case you were bored.
After shoving the dresser back to it’s rightful place this morning, I went back out to the stairwell to hover about trying to snag some WiFi (pronounced WeeFee in France and Spain) and then stopped in the restaurant (the main business of Casa Benigno) for a cafe con leche. If it seems like I keep mentioning cafe con leches, it’s because they’re a hiker staple in Spain. They get us up and out the door. Bars in Spain are not exactly bars as we think of them in the States. They’re restaurants that happen to serve alcohol as well, maybe more what we would think of as a locally owned cafe. These people who work in the restaurants/bars work at a speed that would kill a racehorse, and often one person is doing everything. All day and all evening.
The Wikiloc tracks said 26.7 km by the “Camino Verde”, but I didn’t make it past 3 circuitous kilometers. I’d scouted out the exit the night before to at least get a smooth start the next day. In the morning, I walked the pretty park by the river to the first turn, found the next arrow and then quickly missed the following faded green arrow about 12′ off path on a low rock. A navigation trick that Nicole taught me showed that I was off-track, and after backtracking about 0.5 km, I found the obscure marking and headed down the correct path……..but ten minutes later found myself dropped onto a small blacktop road with no indication for which way to go. Per maps.me, I was getting farther away from my reference of the LU 934, so I decided that if less than 3 km were this ambiguous, 26.7 km would probably be a real mess. I walked the small blacktop road back to connect with the LU 934 and decided it would be better to stick to that instead of spending the day lost and wasting time. The road walking wasn’t any better than the prior days with 18″ shoulders, intermittent fast cars, and it became increasingly remote/isolated and mountainous. And because this isn’t an official part of any Camino yet until the Norte joins farther on, the locals and the dogs seemed unaccustomed to visitors in their midst.
Some tech-loaded people with the Wikiloc files superimposed on an offline map who don’t mind following on their phones as they walk probably would do fine, but I just wanted a well-marked, less-worry walk.
For those here via the tag, one good thing about the LU and AC 934 (the letters in front change because the Province they’re passing through changes from Lugo to A Coruña) is that there are signposts for kilometers starting in Friol. It’s a fairly direct 23 km, so roadwalking saves 3.7 km, which can amount to an hour for a tired person. You can get an Empresa Freire from Lugo to Arzua and then wait for the evening Monday – Friday bus from there to Sobrado dos Monxes, but then you’d miss the monks’ Vespers. Get there for Vespers if you can – you are a witness rather than a participant, and to me, even as a rank heathen, it was a unique and powerful experience. It’s possible that you must be staying overnight to attend. Or, at least, I saw none of the many day tourists attending.
There was absolutely nothing (unless you count a ton of barking dogs, a few of them loose), excepting a few residences, until O Meson about 5 km from Sobrado (the cafe in O Meson is run by a kind, accommodating woman and her family). This was on a Tuesday in late June.
At about 8 km the next of the seemingly deliberately intimidating men showed up. He slowed down in the oncoming lane on this deserted, remote stretch of mountain road, crossed over the other lane to park at the only place near me on the side of the road where it was possible to stop a car, and quickly got out with a huge/4′ branch pruning tool. As if there were some branch that just had to be pruned immediately on this featureless, remote stretch of road with no other humans for several km in either direction. I nodded and said a firm “hola”, to which he just stood there and stared. I’m getting tired of these guys who…..if you read the forums ……seem to be very deliberately trying to “teach a lesson” to those women who do this alone. And some of them have been bizarre, such as the man who cruised alongside a woman slowly, glaring at her, presumably to threaten her and give her a chance to notice that he had plastic-wrapped the seating and the dash of his vehicle. That’ll teach us. They can’t be charged for glaring and menacing, and you will not know whether there is going to be violence or not. And once again, none of this behavior is directed at males or those walking in groups, so those people will continue to insist that none of this is happening. Must make these men feel big.
Then suddenly, at around 11.5 km from Friol, there was the first Camino sign, so that’s probably where the Norte joins. It made me very happy, as if from then on I was back to Camino civilization. At one point when the most recent in a number of fast-moving concrete mixers passed far too close, I looked back to see a string of dispersed walkers behind. I could have hugged them all. Most were English-speakers with a guided tour, and they were fun to talk with. All the women had thought about going alone, and they had questions about what it was like to do it alone and female, but all had decided it was better to go with their husbands and a group. I tried to reinforce the wisdom of their decision, and was grateful that they turned up. Connection really helps and a little will go a long way toward feeling better.
It wasn’t a walking day I’d want to repeat, but the goal was to get to Sobrado dos Monxes. Mission accomplished.
The monastery lodging doesn’t accept people until 16:30, so along with a few others we lined up our backpacks at the designated entrance for the Albergue traditionally indicating the order in which you are taken in to register. I’d sent an email from one of the restaurants in Sobrado where I stopped to eat in hopes of getting a private habitacion in the hospederia, but had not yet received a response.
So, at the designated time I went back to get registered to find the hall filled with other pilgrims, mostly kids, standing in line……. and the age-old backpack place-saver tradition ignored. A man at the front of the line evidently knew about the practice and invited me to go ahead of them at the designated door, but then a rather obnoxious man came out and started commandeering those waiting through a totally different door and locking the door behind (?) us. I didn’t know whether I would have a room in the hospedería yet, and the guy couldn’t be bothered with details because he was busy cattle-herding. Once again, I was literally the last in line after being one of the first to arrive and having followed the standard Albergue practice. Tired and getting frustrated, and as the albergue would be full of kids by the looks of it, I decided that if I had to, I’d go to the badly rated hotel in town. When what was indicated as the Hospederia door opened, they were only taking tourist entrance fees for visiting the monastery rather than processing those staying overnight. Once again I was asked to move to the side. I waited and waited until a large number of day-visitors and tour groups were processed to go in and see the monastery, and then the monk staffing the desk called the monk who evidently takes care of the hospederia rooms. Eventually, not getting overtly frustrated and being persistent paid off again, and for 35 Euro the very kind monk walked me to the very private, separated hospedería, gave my instructions in French (French to the rescue again), and I have a simple, comfortable room in this renovated, very private area. I had an unexpected teary-eyed moment at his kindness and to have some peace and comfort on this long and grueling road.
Those staying here have free run of the cavernous compound all night. At first, it looked much like many other monastery and cathedral compounds I’ve seen, although the face of this one is wildly baroque and unique (see image). Eventually I stumbled unexpectedly into a side-door (the main entrance is no longer used?) for the massive church part after passing through the cloisters and some other chapels. It was overwhelming for its sheer size – cavernous and empty and freezing cold, like a vast and secret place in a dream. There were side rooms with gisantes and a back room with some newer murals that a young man from Valencia wanted to show me (I would have missed them had he not). It has to be seen rather than told about, and to call the place atmospheric would be an understatement. I am glad to have put the extra effort into being here, and would not have wanted to miss this.
There was the latest comedy of inter-cultural misunderstanding. When I arrived around 2:30 pm, a guy around age 35 was at the entrance to the monastery compound in baggy shorts, baggy T-shirt, barefooted and limping badly on the cobblestones. I got out my foot care bag and offered to help with his feet basically by holding out the plastic bag as if offering. He said (what was that accent?) “after duche” – as if he wanted to shower first, which made sense. It’s the order of things on Camino, and why cleanse and treat and dress a foot before a shower? Awhile later, as I sat in the ticket office waiting to see if the monastery would let me have a hospederia room, he inexplicably came into the small office and stood in front of me looking at me as if he’d showered and was ready for some foot care. I told him I was “trying to get a room”, to which he seemed to take offense and walked off. Concerned that I’d seemed dismissive, I went looking for him after I got showered and took my foot care ziplock bag. No one seemed to know who he was. The very funny British abbot and I had a good laugh about looking for a younger man with foot problems because, obviously, there was a whole Albergue full of males fitting that description. Later I saw the limping guy in front of the entrance and offered the contents of my bag, but he just looked annoyed and said something about doing it in the morning and that he had many things for his feet. There was something extraordinarily serious and irritable and intense about him, which should have been a clue to leave him alone. Ok. So maybe the problem was that I just wanted too much to help and had misunderstood.
The next morning, he was starting his hiking day as I was waiting for the bus and I realized that although the night before he looked like a limping, baggy-shorts novice, today he looked like a hard-core trekker with bandana skull cap, really tattered backpack, worn cargo shorts and beaten-up hiking shoes. I’d missed the super-hiker calves the night before, although I’m not sure how because they were impressive. This was a guy who could probably have amputated his own foot and not winced. He was also probably the last guy on any Camino to want some old nurse fussing over his feet.
Like I said. Committing international faux pas – its kind of a chronic issue.
Vespers was at 7 pm – the monks’ evening ritual of responsive singing and reading with each other (we were as witnesses). There were what could be described as powerful periods of silence and darkness. The periods of absolute stillness gave a sense of being at once completely alone but completely whole, and at the same time also a sense of being at one with every other totally still, upright human present. It was an honor to be there as their guest.
I pushed the easy button and don’t feel all that bad about it. In town they told me there was no autobus, which may have been a concrete interpretation of my question about a way to go onward without actually walking. I emailed TaxiCamino, whose ads were here and there (they transport backpacks too, should anyone need them), and they emailed back and forth quickly and as late as 11 pm. They arrived exactly at 08:00 as they said they would, and charged 7 Euro for a 26 km drive because the cost was split 4 ways……with 3 from the group of young Spaniards who had stayed at the Municipal around the corner.
There were about 6 pairs of hikers road-walking ON the busy road out of Grandas de Salime. With no shoulders. I’d stopped for a cafe con leche at the Bar Avenida before leaving Grandas to thank the barman who found me a bed (Spaniards work from sunup to late at night, it seems, and think nothing of it). From the signs and early hikers, it looked like there was road walking the majority of the 26 km……but in fairness, a couple of areas of nice views also.
In A Fonsagrada, I walked around town, checked out the Pension Cantábrica (which looks very nice), but decided that sitting around for 22 hours was a waste of time and if the pension won’t refund my booking charge, it still may be worth it. This way there will be no rush to see and stay at the monastery at Sobrado dos Monxes, perhaps by the Camino Verde (which is a newly marked unofficial route that connects the Primitivo in Lugo with the Norte before Sobrado). A forum member who has walked it with the promoter of this new connecting route said that the man had used green paint because that’s the color of paint he had leftover in his garage to mark the route.
In Lugo Cathedral. Mary has a dagger in her heart, presumably another rather graphic and gruesome depiction meant to illustrate her grief.
Next, the Her-Vei bus to Lugo cost a steep 7.60 Euro for the 1 hr 15 min ride, but skipping road-walking with a bad leg on the last planned walking day: priceless.
The Estacion de Autobuses in Lugo is just south of the fortifications, and it was easy to get an onward ticket for the afternoon on the Arriva bus to Friol. There were 3 hours to wander Lugo, which was just about right. Clothing stores had really stylish things for surprisingly cheap, but I had no wish to add backpack weight just yet. The women all over are wearing pretty sundresses and there does seem to be a focus in Spain on dressing well and looking attractive.
I walked the 2 km on top of the walls/fortifications which are in places over 20 ft thick with more than enough “road” for whatever carts or artillery might have been used in those days. Unlike here in the States, there were no particular safety measures and in many places, the wall on the internal side was no higher than 2 ft with perhaps a 40 ft drop. Lots of people out exercising at mid-day: office workers, tourists, mothers with kids, dog walkers, and a guy running in a Lycra Speedo, which is not uncommon.
It’s finally gotten warmer. Or, at least I’m not freezing most of the time. Camino burlesque/strip-off time starts around 09:00 most days, depending on how strenuous the first inclines of the day are.
The 9th century part of the Cathedral in Lugo is Roman, but much of it that was built later is NeoClassical. It’s definitely worth visiting, but beware the woman offering a Cathedral stamp. There is a cost. Everyone with a backpack was being intercepted by her, but in return she wanted to give long, detailed teaching about Jesus loving us, the tabernacle being one of the few in the world continuously-displayed, and the story of Mary with the Big Eyes because they were Eyes of Mercy. I did my best to be polite, and she took advantage of it to give catholic teaching material, ask personal questions about Faith, and to tell me it wasn’t too late to become a Catholic.
But the Cathedral stamp is kind of nice.
On the way back to see an almost life-sized sculptural depiction of the Last Supper, there was a long series of confessionals to the left along the wall. One of them had the top half of its door open and an odd-colored light shining…..on a priest reading out loud from presumably the Bible. It was so odd-looking to me (not a Catholic) that it seemed as if he might be mechanical…. like the carnival fortune-teller automaton from the movie “Big”. But he may well have been waiting for people who wanted to confess, which is in service to others and probably a great relief for some.
I went for lunch at a very nice place on the Plaza Mayor called Cafe Canela. Finely blended gazpacho with buttered croutons, a salad with lots of watercress and a balsamic vinaigrette and thick toast with salmon, avocado, a mayo sauce of some kind on top, and an agua con gas. They usually include wine, dessert, crusty bread, and coffee if you like as well. For 13 Euro.
I’d been able to call from Lugo to reserve a room since the decision to take the bus to Friol today was last-minute. Friol is a pretty town with big parks and a plaza at its center. The people are lively and friendly, and it seems that there is a rich community life. I have a pretty basic room and the restaurant isn’t open for dinner, but it’s the only place to stay, and it cost 25 Euro. I probably cost them that in hot water.
Unfortunately, I didn’t ever figure out how to superimpose Wikiloc for the “Camino Verde” (nobody in town seems to be aware of the Camino Verde) onto an offline map, but I was able to download the corresponding maps.me map for Galicia. It uses my locator, so I’ll either walk the AS-934 to Sobrado dos Monxes tomorrow or risk following the alleged green arrows (among everything else that’s green in summer) and use the locator to find a route back to the 934 if I get lost.
Friol:
Did I mention that I don’t like uncertainty all that much?
It took at minimum 5 minutes of gentle and not-so-gentle wiggling to get the room key to work in the lock. There doesn’t seem to be a reliable technique to open the door (many of these places have old locks, and I’m fairly sure I’ve heard that the lock situation has been a problem at this pension). After getting locked in the room in Nasbinals a few weeks ago under similar circumstances, I’m not getting into that position again, although unlike in Nasbinals, I think these people who run the place live here….so will do what I think I’ve heard others online say they did and drag the chest of drawers in front of the door to have a little notice in case an axe murderer is about.
There is a little WiFi here, but to get enough strength it is necessary to go out and sit in the stairwell, preferably leaning toward the innermost wall for a spotty 2 bars.
The lights are on timers, so sitting in the stairwell (or on the toilet in some other places) requires waving one’s arms every minute or so to activate the motion sensor and avoid sitting in the dark.
Things are at a point where getting back home to things being uniform and standard and back into my regular life with a soaker tub and my own bed is sounding kind of good.
The “lady from Bilbao” and I played hiker leap-frog much of the morning. She planned on staying at a hotel here in Grandas de Salime that is closed, cerrado, so I hope she found lodging. That closing hasn’t made it to the Wise Pilgrim app yet, and it was a little concerning to get into town after a longer and more difficult day than expected to find the only hotel closed, the “occidental” hostal such a scary place that I’m not sure who would agree to staying in a room above the bar there, and after such a low number of people hiking, the 28-bed Municipal was said this evening to be completo. A block over from the interesting iglesia is Bar Avenida where the group of Spanish kids helped again by translating. The barman found me a bed at Albergue Sanchez, and the owner speaks French, which made things MUCH easier. I’m rooming with Francoise, a very experienced and older French hiker who also prefers to hike alone. We had dinner together and with her kindly saying things a bit slowly, I understood everything she said, and we found that we have some common ground. Dinner was Fabala, an Asturian specialty that is essentially bean soup with blood sausage. In the morning we agreed that we are both quiet women, and with only the two of us in the room, we both got a good night’s rest. Francoise said it was the first night she hadn’t had to use her earplugs and eye mask. Hearing that made me glad to have limited my time in the albergues this trip.
The walk to the Embalse was very scenic with more mountain panoramas and a long detour through woods said to be because of the 2017 fires. I heard about the fires online. Probably with many burned trees, there are many trees falling.
There’s a newer Albergue with a good cafe in La Mesa (4.4 km past Berducedo), so if one were camping somewhere along the Hospitales route, it might make a good place to stop.
There Be Giants
There were a number of ascents and descents, and I think, with the detour, the day was around 23 – 25 km. Slow going with slow ascents, descents, and rocky paths.
The Embalse de Salime is set into some massive mountains, so large that it’s like looking at the Grand Canyon, and in places it’s a little dizzying. So big that it seems more like a painting. About 1 km after crossing the dam, there’s a bar/hotel where anti-Trump sentiment was being broadcast in Spanish. After the dam there’s about 6 km of uphill road walking on an intermittently-used no-shoulder road with sheer drop offs to the left, cliffs to the right, and blind curves. The Californians had a tour company arrange their hike and they were provided with a cab for this section because it was considered unadvisable to attempt on foot. I’ll never understand how it’s ok to route unsuspecting hikers this way. Then the last 1.5km was straight up a narrow woods path with sheer drop offs to the right protected only by….. ferns.
But it’s over. And I was able to get a reservation in A Fonsagrada for tomorrow night. It looks like it will be another 26 difficult km hike. It’s the closest place for many days that has bus service onward to Lugo, so I’m going to stop there.
This has been a day I’ve been apprehensive about and researched thoroughly since deciding to do the Primitivo. It is 31+ km and involves long ascents and two long, treacherous descents.
Someone online expressed concern about doing the stretch after Alto de la Marta. A response was: “if you’re THAT worried about it, just walk the roads down”, which is a good example of why it’s important to be careful about advice on online forums. This day is a grueling 31+ km as it is, and were it not grueling, many can’t hike 31km of flat path. The road walking adds a minimum of 6 km to that, so that’s a 37+ km day with ZERO options for lodging or food (at least the place in Lago was NOT open this day in late June on a Friday during regular business hours). And the road turns up on a site called “dangerous roads.org”. There is no shoulder to walk on, and although they aren’t very busy, there are huge trucks using it and hairpin/blind curves.
The route isn’t that bad until the part after Alto de la Marta, the first road you will meet, for those here via the Camino Primitivo tag. There is an inexplicable yellow arrow pointing straight DOWN just across the road from the trail you’ve come down from. If you look straight down, there are layers of what seem like thin, indistinct, rocky switchbacks paths as if you’re supposed to somehow get to a road far below by negotiating them. I have no idea why that arrow is there, but look to the right and see a Camino sign with an arrow to the left (although you’re not going left down that monstrous mountain … yet anyway……) that is often seen on the roads for cars/cyclists. In this case, follow the road to the right briefly and see a wooden railing to the left that momentarily provides some safety from the upcoming blind curve. Once the little path reconnects to the road, there’s a yellow arrow leading off the road and UP again. Then you’re back in business.
The descent after the Alto de Palo is ridiculous. Be very careful. And then there are yet more ascents. The last 3 km in to Berducedo is mercifully through a beautiful pine forest and flat.
That all said, it would be impossible to describe the panoramas all day. They evidently do open grazing there, and there were cattle and wild horses along the way. It was spectacular, and the pinnacle of my hiking career thus far. I’m very happy to have done it, but once was probably enough.
I walked into Berducedo with a Danish mother and daughter. Most seemed to stay at the Municipal. The group of wonderful young people I’d met during the day offered to help carry my pack contents since they’d noticed the ace-wrapped leg (I was doing fine), and offered me chocolate and sunscreen. We’d stumbled across a bone yard of sorts at a peak, seemingly the skulls, legs and rib cages, some with flesh still rotting off, of cattle. That’s when one of them brought up that there are bears up there. Bears. But I brought pepper spray. That would fix any bear problems, right?
One of the ruins of old pilgrim hospitals from documented from the 15th century.
The locals were friendly in Berducedo and I got a very nice habitacion at Camin Antiguo at the end of town – a very pretty house, and I met another mother-daughter duo from California and a lady from Bilbao who had done the route before. We are all now inductees in Husband Tom’s imaginary Hiker Chick Hall of Fame.
There are no adequate words to describe this day, so although the pictures don’t capture the scale of things, maybe they will give you some idea. It was a day to remember. Do it if you can, just be prepared.
Kind of a mucky, sucky day all around, and unless you need information and advice about this particular stretch from La Espina to Campiello, you may want to skip the unpleasantness below.
Accuweather said cloudy with intermittent showers and thunderstorms for the rest of the week. Other sources this morning said no rain today and beautiful weather tomorrow. There was light rain until noon. Since La Espina was blanketed in fog from the time I arrived yesterday around 3 pm to this morning, I had no reason to think that waiting for the fog to burn off would help, and so I headed out after being given the suggestion that people do walk the road to Tineo to avoid a great deal of mud that is there almost always. Road walking in thick fog on a much-used road with no shoulder and fast cars is suicidal, and after about the 30th time of straddling the guard rail to avoid getting mowed over, I turned on cellular data for a minute and found a way to join the muddy route on the app. I saw no other walkers all day except a power-walker who quickly left me in the dust (or mud) and then, about 9 km before Campiello, two young people who also walked much faster.
Tineo, metal Pilgrim
There were about 20 minutes of mountain panoramas and then it was back to woods, rocks and mud or more shoulder-less road walking that was unavoidable and part of the designated route.
Getting to Campiello took forever, it seemed. Between the mud and the stepping off the roads constantly to avoid being taken out by an oncoming car in the fog, it was extremely slow going.
There was one place to get a cafe con leche passing through Tineo without leaving the path. And Casa Ricardo is a great place to get a habitacion in Campiello (25 Euro individual). They have extra facilities, a tienda, a cafe, and the family is very nice.
I’m worried about the 31+km straight up and straight down tomorrow. I had mud (which always has large amounts of cowshit in it) all over the ace wrap on my leg, so removed it and tried to wash it. There’s a large, hardened, red area on my lower shin. But I’m hoping with it rewrapped and with it elevated overnight, I can make it to Berducedo tomorrow. I’d try to make taxi arrangements for pickup at the Alto de la Marta (a Marta seems to be a kind of minx or pine marten), but there’s no cell service here and the WiFi isn’t working “because of the weather”……….
And sometimes it just leads you on a fool’s errand, but not today.
#1 – I’m glad to have waited and not made plans to give up walking on this painful leg because it’s now getting better, not worse, even though there’s a large, hardened, red area and it may well be a stress fracture instead of one shin splint.
Finding this spray-painted on a tunnel on the path sparked some curiosity, and so when returned home, I searched online for information and eventually found an obscure blog by someone who had walked the path who knew about physics. The equation was said to have at one time been thought to prove the existence of God. There’s a story related to this (the so-called Euler-Diderot incident) in mathematics circles that involves Catherine II of Russia, Euler and Diderot, but the event was unlikely to have happened and the equation itself was said to make no sense to anyone knowledgeable about physics.
#2 – I’m glad to have NOT caved and tried to walk the N-634 up when saw a steep elevation profile for Salas to La Espina last night when looking at the day ahead. First, although I’ve heard of a few people doing the road walk, it looks suicidal. Each time the trail crossed it today there were zero shoulders and not heavy, but fast traffic. In fact, on the trail, it was a very good day full of woods-walking – first not far from the A-63 superhighway and then after Salas, what looked like steep elevation gain was really very pleasant and doable.
It has rained lightly off and on all day and the areas at higher elevations are covered in fog, but the cooler temperatures are good for walking.
Salas
Salas had an excellent Supermercado. But then, ANYPLACE with options and services looks good to me at the moment. They also have an ancient church and a Castillo. I went to stop in one place for a cafe con leche, but as is the custom, the entire place was a lively men’s noontime/siesta time meeting place. So I stopped in next door and was greeted warmly by the man behind the counter, a woman sitting at the bar, and a woman at a table. They made a nice cafe con leche, tried to ply me with cookies and tapas, and asked as best as I could understand about where I’d stayed last night and where I was going. It seemed that the man had been to Washington DC, but maybe he really was saying ….. “WTH is going on in Washington DC”. I tried to google translate with him, as it seemed he wanted to talk, but he thought I wanted him to take my picture and when I handed him my iPhone to translate back and forth, I think he changed a bunch of settings and possibly had never used one. Eventually he wanted to take my picture holding up menu with the name of his place, El Arco, in Salas, probably to commemorate being there or possibly to promote his business. I google translated that I’d post it on my blog for other Caminantes to notice, which seemed to make him happy. And me too.
He wanted to shake hands on parting, and we’d really had a nice time trying to bridge the gap without knowing much at all of each other’s language, and I wasn’t sure he was going to let go of me……but it was endearing and enjoyable.
Another impressive Spanish engineering feat, Salas
There was the trip’s first of what I usually call “The Glaring Men of Galicia”. Except I’m still in Asturias. It’s an unmistakably hostile glare, seemingly intended to intimidate, and I’ve seen about 8 of these men over the years on Camino. This one briefly lowered his gaze to spit on the sidewalk in utter disdain before resuming glaring. How dare we walk alone and female.
Later, on a stretch required on the no-shoulder, fast-traffic N-634, I’d stepped off into the weeds because, as happens not infrequently, there was a car coming one direction and another in the other, on trajectory to meet exactly where I was trying to walk without becoming road-kill. The oncoming driver slowed way down, let the other car pass, and then turned on his signal that he was moving to the middle of the road to keep me safe. I waved in thanks and he waved and gave a thumbs up. Buen Camino.
And then the very next car at exactly the point where the road-walking section met the entrance where the Camino resumed on a path up into the woods, a car approached slowly, pulled in front of and obstructed the clearly marked entrance to the Camino into the woods, and a hefty male abruptly jumped out, went to the van’s back cargo doors, flung them open, and stood there and watched me as I approached to get onto the trail. For no apparent reason other than perhaps to alarm. And after I passed, he went right back to get into the driver’s seat. This was probably the usual intimidation attempt, but it’s just one of the many things that can and do happen to women walking these paths in Spain and Portugal, and they get much uglier than this.
I think it is probably a no win situation for travelers in many of these cultures and rural areas. It was not that long ago – when the Caminos became business for these dustier small towns in Spain and after a murder-and-dismemberment of a female hiker happened, and many more overt sexual assaults happened – that a greater effort was made to at least appear like assaults on and harassment of women were being taken seriously. Women are now about 50% of those seeking Compostelas. Prior to that, I’ve read, women hiking these trails either alone or with other women were, absurdly, seen as “asking for it”.
This particular hike has helped me work on more quickly deciding to not dwell on the more upsetting things that have happened here and there. I don’t accept that they happen, but am trying to note them and move past. There has been, overall more good than bad. I report the really abusive things to try to prevent the same from happening to women, and I’m trying to let things go with the realization that there are simply a great number of a$$hats in the world and they seem to suffer no consequences.
That said, I don’t know how many more of these iffy situations I’m willing to walk past. There is no point reporting them on forums because people who haven’t had these experiences quickly dismiss them and assume it’s something YOU’VE done “wrong”. Mustn’t say anything that isn’t rhapsodic about these Caminos, and if you do, YOU are quickly designated as the problem. It’s never that there really are predators or other horrible people out there. The reports of problems are endless on the main forum and other places, yet they quickly roll past onto the inactive posts and are forgotten. It always amazes me how ready people are (who WANT to believe they are “very safe” doing these Caminos) to dismiss the large volume of evidence to the contrary with pretty thinking.
But tonight I’m in the Albergue El Texu in La Espina. There are no other hikers around despite the reassurances that there are always others to hike among. I have never found that to be true except perhaps on the Portuguese in September of last year. And I was with my sister that time.
I only saw one other Caminante on the trail all day, and a couple by the Albergue in Bodenaya who turned out to be the couple who run it, and although it is a less popular route, I’m surprised by how few hikers there are. I have a good habitation tonight, but the albergue downstairs looks nice also. The hospitalera is Polish and a Camino hiker as well, and she developed this place after proposing a plan to the property owner. She’s put a lot of work into the place. She speaks very good English and is kind. I hope this newly reopened Albergue does well, as it’s comfortable and run with love.
Probably only 13 km by the red routes, but with the steep downhills and in pain starting out, I limped into Cornellana looking for a medical clinic. I’d Google-translated the history of the problem and the symptoms, and although they were leaving for lunch, the doctor gave instructions for the clinic nurse to put on a strong new ace wrap and gave instructions to ice it, elevate it when done with walking every day, and leave it wrapped for 8 days. By then I’ll be in Santiago.
My new friend Nicole from yesterday showed me a trick that can make the Wise Pilgrim Primitivo app show the gps/satellite locator superimposed on the app’s basic map. No cellular data required and no internet access required. It’s a circuitous route to get it to work, but other than worrying me about the odd and off-schedule route the Feve train took this morning, using this trick got me here tonight.
For those on here via the Primitivo tag, the first half of this day wasn’t t particularly inspiring on a road across from the major highway, but it was rewarding to walk through Grado and hear “Buen Camino” greetings and see the locals going about their days. Plenty of places to grab a cafe con leche too.
The blue/main route follows the N-634, which is a fast route with a significant number of cars flying past and no shoulder to speak of. As an old trauma nurse, these ways of routing hikers annoy me. Drivers often seem reckless and oblivious and whether people like to think about it or not, occasionally a hiker gets taken out by cars. Then the news rolls onto the back pages of the forums never to be heard again. If it gets reported at all…… There is some intermittent senda, but when I came across the alternative routes (red lines on the app) that said they were for pedestrians and had yellow arrows, I took them. Unfortunately, there were loose and very angry dogs and no one responded when I called out “el perro! Ayuda, por favor”. Fortunately they seemed to respond to threatening gestures with hiking poles, but this can’t always be counted on. Then there was a farm compound where the inhabitants did not seem especially happy to see me. When I tried to find the way forward, they indicated that there was a mark, but it was almost all hidden behind leaves. Then the trail dissolved into a bit of bushwhacking with overgrowth and thorny plants.
Note the date at the bottom.
Then finally the steep, rocky descent into Cornellana. It may well have been the longest 13 km I’ve ever walked.
At the Albergue in Cornellana, it looked for hours like it would be just me and two guys who were not together, but who both immediately stripped down to only their Speedo’s to prance around and lay on their beds. I took the back room, which one of them designated the “chicas” room, which was pretty funny. He seems nice and has been whistling and singing all evening. But the other one seems to want to be constantly engaged and has been more than a little overbearing with me, finding reasons to tell me what to do even though I am not uncertain about what to do at all. I’ve been trying not to be openly rejecting, but not willing to engage either. First he wanted me to share a washer and dryer with him. Then he instructed me to watch the hospitalaro demonstrate how the gate worked…..for the third time. Then he wanted me to mop the bathroom floor in the women’s bathroom after I showered despite it not being problematically wet and there were no other females there. Etc, etc. This went on for several hours.
There isn’t anyplace else in town to stay anymore since the hotel closed. The prospect of trying to deal with these guys alone after they’d possibly been out drinking in town did not sound good. There is no other lodging next until Salas, which is over 10k further and would probably take 4 hours with this painful, reddened leg. And then, something really good happened. Two French girls arrived, settled into “the chica room” and later another man and his female companion arrived. Which all made me very happy.
The Albergue is in an old monastery. The place is crumbling, but the church doors were open for a gathering around 7pm, and I was surprised by what was inside (above). This particular rendition of what has been a monastery and pilgrim lodging for over 1,000 years was constructed in 1678.
Inexplicably over the arch to the compound. It seems to be a beast ready to devour a human underneath.
I don’t know why people talk about this Albergue as if it is very rustic. There’s good WiFi close to the office. There’s a nicely stocked kitchen. The dorms are pleasant, the bathrooms and hot water plentiful. The courtyard is nice and there’s plenty of room for everyone’s clothes to dry on lines. There’s a hand dryer which could be used to dry hair. There are plugs at each bunk for recharging. The rooms are spacious and the bunks well apart. And then there’s a washer and dryer too, which is not found many places.
It is cold, however, and I’ll be sleeping in my warmest clothes well into June in Spain.
At the Feve station this morning, they assured me that the train went to Nueva. The running digital displays on board the train played the list of all stops/paradas along the way, and they also posted in real time what the next/upcoming stop would be…….and then the train flew right through them without stopping. I have no idea how they knew exactly who was going where because tickets were purchased onboard as the train was hurtling down the tracks, but they actually did stop in Nueva and let me off.
I’d gotten bad instructions for how to get onto the coastal path from the Feve station in Nueva, and had stopped in for a cafe con leche and for a new set of directions at a cafe. A man at the end the bar saw I was struggling with Spanish and asked if I spoke French. So, we used French as a lingua franca and I was again back in business for at least an hour. I must have used maps.me 5 times and asked about 6 more people for directions, but eventually after Garaña, Camino markings reappeared, as this is perhaps where the main non-coastal route rejoins.
Had I known how little coast there was on this “coastal route” day, I would have stayed on the train until Ribadesella because it wasn’t worth struggling with the lack of marking, the rain (Accuweather: 4% chance of rain, mixed clouds and sun, 71 degrees predicted…..WAY off today), and the misdirection from well-meaning people. Or maybe I’m just much worse at following directions than I’d thought, which is entirely possible.
Yesterday on the way down from the heights getting to Llanes, a really beautiful walk (that would not be good for those with fear of heights and concern about lack of guard rails), I started having some pain in my right lower shin. A cold soda pressed to it, a soak in a hot tub and an overnight off of it didn’t help. I walked about 15km on it today, including some ups and downs, and now – 24 hours later – it’s got a hardened, redenned area and can be pretty painful. Flexing OR extending is painful. I was hoping it was muscular, but it’s possibly something I shouldn’t be walking on. In Oviedo, I got some Voltaren ointment (OTC here!) and a fresh ace wrap, and had been taking Motrin, but not much is helping.
Example of how in this one region, direction is indicated by the shell’s hinge rather than by its rays. Follow the yellow arrow………
At the bus station in Ribadesella, once again things were unlike how they are said to be online. The bus required a transfer, and when the first leg’s bus was late, it was unclear whether we’d miss the connecting bus, meaning we’d be stuck in an obscure outpost at least overnight. But the connecting bus had waited for us. I say “we” because a woman initiated contact at the bus station in Ribadesella. I thought she was Scandinavian for some reason (her mother is Dutch), but she turned out to be from Seattle, about my age, a retired PA, a world traveler, and a super-hiker (PCT, etc, etc). She had walked 10 days on the Norte and now had a stress fracture (possibly from the same descent into Llanes where I first started having pain….. it has sidelined many according to the forums). She was planning on hiking all summer, so she’s getting new plans together and will take a bus to Villalba tomorrow afternoon.
I booked for the Hotel Favila from the bus station in Ribadesella. The hotel is across from the train station in Oviedo on Calle Uría. It was recommended by a guy on the forum last year who live-blogged his San Salvador, Primitivo and Finisterre hikes. I’d expected very little, as hotels near train stations are notoriously low-budget and sometimes seedy, but this is much nicer than expected. Warm, nice, hardworking people, a cheap Menu del Día (fish soup and fish in sauce for a third night……but it’s not duck!). A huge room meant for three, and a rather chi-chi bathroom….for 35 Euro and they took credit cards.
Oviedo Cathedral
I went to the train station this evening to check things out for in the morning, stopped to take a picture of The Woody Allen statue (he filmed parts of Vickie Christina Barcelona here and he is said to be very fond of Oviedo), gawked at all the gorgeous Spanish architecture, walked to the cathedral and got my first Primitivo stamp from a kind woman there, bought grocery items for in the room and on the road, and marveled at how positive and helpful everyone has been here.
Dinner is never served before 8pm and often much later in Spain. The Russian Federation soccer games are on ALL TVs again. I had a front-row seat at dinner in the hotel restaurant and once again enjoyed watching these impressive guys play.
I was afraid that the white thing was some awful fish part or, worse, one of the many and various colors of slugs that make their way millimeter by millimeter across the trails after it rains, but mercifully it was only a fat, featureless, probably canned spear of white asparagus.
The Primitivo, which I’ll start tomorrow, was the original path to Santiago, and there were pilgrim hospitals along the way, some of them remaining as ruins. There is also extraordinary Roman architecture nearby.
It’s 11 pm, the garbage collectors are out en force, and I’ve discovered that my room is behind the lighted sign for the hotel on the 5th floor. Fortunately there are shutters and curtains. I’m just glad it’s not blinking off and on like a motel….
Buenas noches. Tomorrow – skipping the messy exit out of Oviedo, pushing the easy button, and walking a limited day to see how the leg does….between Grado and the crumbling monastery Albergue in Cornellana, which is said to have no nuthin’, but is well-liked anyway.
After a quick cafe con leche, I hit the road. The restaurant manager said to just take the road to Buelna because of the ups and downs, but he didn’t know that I’d just finished a route far worse. I took the trail, and had I not, I would have missed meeting this friendly little guy and missed some babbling brooks in the forest.
Met a nice Brit in Buelna when stopping in for a cold Coke Zero at the albergue. She’s walking with her Spanish friend and we’ve been leapfrogging all day. I saw them passing by later at dinnertime in Llanes and we had a nice exchange, but they were either totally exhausted or stoned. My bet is on the latter, and I’ll bet at the moment they’re having a wonderful snooze while I’m still wide awake at midnight. I sometimes have the impression that alcohol and smoking pot are favorite ways of getting to sleep on these Caminos and I am a sober person who sometimes struggles with sleep. But a happy sober one.
For those here by the tag for the Camino del Norte, be aware that there are several places on this day where you can run into marking trouble. Getting to the coastal route from Buelna isn’t clear. Stop at the albergue on the left at the entrance to town for directions, or turn back about 30 paces and go left by the rubbish bins into a little village and housing area. Then follow the signs for the playa and you’ll find yourself on the coastal route. In Pendueles, same problem. You can follow the arrows out the other end of town and find yourself on the noncoastal route and heading south under the A-8. It’s not even remotely comparable to the coastal route (don’t ask me how I know this….), so if you find yourself in this position, retrace your steps and turn where the arrows are for Casa Rosa (or was it Casa Lula? To the right on entering town the first time) which looked to me like being routed toward the business, but which actually take you to the high route.
Then in Andrín, same thing. You’ll be dropped like a hot potato at the exit from the town. Either follow the signs to Restaurant Julia from in town or go to the intersection at the end of town, turn around and look at the road signs and BACKTRACK up onto the road for Llanes past Restaurant Julia. Otherwise, you’ll end up on the straight-ahead road that goes 100+km to Oviedo and you’ll miss all the ocean views and probably not be very happy about it.
After the climb up and out of Andrín, you’ll see Llanes (pronounced YAH-Nez) in the distance. Don’t get too excited, though, because you’ll want to take the high road up after the golf course….the GR E-9….which goes on and on, but has a steady, gorgeous view of the ocean the entire way. In fact, you may begin to worry that it won’t drop you back down into Llanes because it will seem like you’re passing it by. It does take you down, and at the intersection for the first albergue, continue straight instead of going right to the albergue. This intersection also isn’t marked, but the people at the albergue are so nice that you won’t mind having to stop and ask.
Goats grazing on the cliffs.
This route isn’t predominantly coastal until you get up and out of Andrín, but that’s well worth the wait, and on the other sections, the views and beaches here and there are also kind of worth the wait. In fact, almost all of the walk today was on pleasant path. The first good view of the ocean involved a brief detour over a stile and out a cow path to a cliff overlook. There are cows out in that field, and hopefully no toros. There are goats and horses and all manner of livestock grazing all along the cliffs.
Once in Llanes, it was confusing to sort out where to go in the twisty medieval streets and ambiguous signage. I stopped in at the Guardia Civil and said “necessito ayuda” to the officer at the desk, who was very helpful, and when I showed him on Booking. Com that I was trying to get to Albergue Casona de Peregrinos, he efficiently pulled a fresh map from his leather dayminder and showed me exactly how to get here…. I was within about 4 blocks. The map, which he gave me, was especially helpful because previously I’d found that the turismo in this coastal town, housed in an Art Deco building meant to look like a ship, was (of course) closed for siesta from 2pm to 4pm….which is exactly the time when hikers are dragging into town dazed and confused and trying to find their lodging, get showered, get laundry done, get fed, and get out to see some of the town.
Picos de Europa, Cantabrians, peaks hidden under clouds
I stopped in a laundromat that I found on the way to the Feve station that charged 3 Euro for 18 minutes of dryer time. That seemed kind of steep, so I didn’t add time. It helped dry tonight’s handwashed laundry so there will hopefully be no need to carry wet laundry tomorrow for a change.
One of many Casas Indianas in Llanes. There was a time in this area’s history when, due to economic hardship throughout northern Spain, many went to the Americas, prospered, and came back to build these mansions in their homeland.
Spanish bump-out windows.
At the Feve station where I’d gone to buy a ticket for tomorrow, there was some ….let’s pretend there’s some nice word for what he was……sitting on the platform alone on his cell phone having an animated conversation (a cynical guess would be with someone that he couldn’t talk freely with except in a private setting). I hadn’t spoken to him at all, and was looking around for the ticket office (which he was sitting right in front of), but he kept shooing me away, telling me to go around to the other side of the building because he assumed I was looking for the albergue on the other side of the estacion. Annoyed, at one point I said “necessito boleto” (ticket), but he wanted me out of there and he became more irritable and insisted that I go around to the other side. When I went around to the other side, of course, the Albergue reception woman assured me that the ticket office was on the other side (where the guy was on the phone) and that I could buy a ticket there whenever I wanted. Eventually I realized that they were both wrong, the office was closed because the last train for the day had left, and, to boot, the train departure schedules posted toward Ribadesella had two different times posted for each of the 4 trains going westward every day. And beyond that, you pay on the train anyway. All clear as mud.
San Roque Chapel (Llanes) of the old “Hospital” of Pilgrims – from the year 1330……..
Independent travel. Not for the easily-frustrated. I’ll grab a breakfast bread and coffee here (included in the 35 Euro price) and get to the station in time for the earlier of the two potential times for the first train out in the morning.
These random words and phrases were embedded in the sidewalks all over the medieval part of the town in this fun font, looking like they were made with dripped solder.
I got a private room at the Albergue Casona de Peregrinos….once again, better than expected. Simple, basic, and no more than I need. Highly rated, and the staff is very kind. 35 Euro, quick, efficient, has a TUB (another midget one, but no complaints). So I did chores and headed out to see the sights and find dinner, which I had at a simple place with a menu del día….cod with tomato sauce, same as last night, and it was excellent.
The Albergue Casona de Peregrinos
There is a TV in this room. Is there anything more melodramatic than a Spanish TV soap opera?
Girl Scout song learned from nieces Shelby and Kelsey years ago when they were little: “Black socks, they never get dirty. The longer you wear ’em the blacker they get. Some-day I prob’ly should wash ’em, but something keeps telling me – don’t do it yet! Not yet, not yet, not yet!
How to dry socks quickly if you run across a blow dryer:0)).
And that song has now been stuck in my head all morning. My socks are almost black now, but they didn’t start out that way. And I’ve been pilfering little plastic bags from the public bathrooms in France meant for sanitary napkin disposal that I’ve repurposed to separate the smelly socks from the other items in the underwear sack. Probably TMI, but it’s a hiker tip.
Spain time is behind France time by an hour, and it was dark until a little after 07:00 a.m. this morning. I headed for the bus station along the river walk around 08:00. Dragging my feet the whole way.
Maria Cristina bridge, San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque)
ALSA, Spain’s national bus system, has WiFi and a well-equipped underground station with a large, airy, pleasant café. Janice Joplin was on the radio singing “Come on, take another little piece of my heart, now Baby”.
Santander. Concrete plaza at the edge of the bay, mountains beyond. Had a couple of hours to walk around town.
Tonight I have a bidet. Last night the bidet function was an extra hose and spray attached to the toilet, like in Thailand, except in Thailand, sometimes most of the toilet is missing and there’s only a squat hole. People lucky enough to not have to work full time to pay for their college educations say that in their youths when they went overseas, they filled bidets with ice and used them to cool wine. I would have been waiting to come down with some dread intestinal malady.
This morning, the digital board didn’t show a bay assignment until the bus rolled into the underground station. Made me nervous, and once again, the bus was completo/all sold out, so I was glad to have gotten the ticket arrangements made the night before. Then later in Santander, each route already had a bay assigned that was its own all the time. However, it wasn’t clear whether the bus actually stopped in Torrelavega or not, and the cardboard sign in the front window of the bus said the bus going was going back to Irun, the reverse direction. I was trying to count stops because the drivers call out abbreviated versions of the town’s names and sometimes it’s hard to understand if you’re getting off at the right place unless you know the names of the stops just before yours. Fortunately, many of the riders on this route were locals, so a few questions cleared things up. I might even be getting more comfortable asking others for help.
I’d planned on taking the Feve/narrow gauge railroad that would have dropped me off very close to where I got a Booking.com reservation (made in 60 seconds flat with bus station WiFi) after spending all day getting from San Sebastián. But at the Feve’s ticket window, the woman said that 4 hours ahead was too early to buy a ticket and to come back 20 minutes before the Feve was to depart. Which made little sense to me except that seconds after she dismissed me, she went on break. She also couldn’t tell me if I had to transfer to the other line in Torrelavega. “Más tarde”. So, I’ll leave it to you to imagine what I said in my head just before I went back to the estacion de autobuses to get a bus ticket instead. A bus which left an hour earlier than the Feve and got me to Unquera quicker.
As it turns out, some of these huge buses DO have bathrooms, and you would never know it unless you’d had exposure to this way of doing things. At the exit door halfway back, there’s a low cabinet that looks like a small magician’s box. You open what looks like the face of a storage cabinet, descend a few steps, and there’s a toilet that sits between the cargo holds below the bus. When a young Muslim girl asked me if there was anyone in there (the little door was in front of my seat), I thought she must be using the wrong words or very confused, but sure enough…….she got the door open eventually and there was a toilet down there.
Finally, cafe con leche. It was necessary to cross the border to get a great cup of coffee at the bus station cafe in Santander.
The Russian Federation Football (soccer) tournament is on everywhere. I played a little soccer in college and enjoy watching the soccer moves and the sweat and the testosterone. Brazil is playing Switzerland right now. My first thought was ??Huh??Swiss guys can play soccer?? But then they showed the closeups…… they were all formidable-looking. It seems as though they really hype the injuries on Spanish sports coverage. They play the footage over and over seemingly for dramatic effect……in slow motion. But then, I don’t watch sports at home on TV (nor TV at all……), so I really have no idea what we do here as opposed to what they do in Spain. It was fun to watch. At every place there was a TV for what seemed like weeks.
Off the ALSA bus in Unquera, it was only 6k to my booking in La Franca from where I’ll start the coastal walking tomorrow. With the buses to get to Unquera, it was already very late in the day for walking, and I saw no identifiable “peregrinos”. The locals also use hiking poles and often use the Camino routes as their own community walking paths (ummm…..because they ARE their own community’s walking paths….). Today, ahead and walking from the opposite direction there was a seemingly-local guy with his dog who abruptly burst out singing loudly. My first though was: “oh, here we go. The next whacked person in Spain already”. But he passed by without incident, gait-wise seemed to have had a stroke at some time, and he wished me a Buen Camino. Seems I’m getting kissed instead of slapped more this trip. And learning once again: “first thought often needs correcting”…..
Sometimes in these small towns an older person will say in passing or parting: “A Dios”. We think of it as simply “adios”, goodbye. But it is meant to mean A Dios. To God.
And so after a quick jaunt over a big hill providing some very good views, I passed out of Cantabria and into Asturias and arrived at the restaurant El Parra in La Franca, a restaurant with rooms above. I was expecting only a very basic habitacion, but got a huge room with all the bells and whistles. Which means a good bed, a midget-sized but actual TUB and a …. blow dryer! The latter has been put to good use to supplement drying all the new handwashed laundry and the old laundry from yesterday that hadn’t dried, even pinned to my backpack in the sun during the walk.
Menu del día: fish soup. Brought in a massive terrine, about 5x what one person could eat. And bacalhau/flaky, buttery white fish with a side of oddly sweet tomato and onion and some fries.
These Caminos (and probably most long hikes) seem to quickly identify one’s shortcomings. More sentimental or idealistic people view this as the Camino magically providing lessons just for you to teach what you need to learn. In fact, there are several concrete reasons why this kind of hike can benefit a person cognitively, emotionally, physically and spiritually. You can look at these “pilgrimages”, which have been a part of many religious traditions for thousands of years, as transformative. They really are metaphors for the road of life, in condensed form, and within them is just about everything that life holds in the long version. Each time I finish one, I feel as though a few more rough edges have smoothed. But I’ll have to keep hiking, because I have no shortage of rough edges.
It turned out to not be a problem to room with the nice, respectful guy at gite Papillon Vert, but moreso with the two young girls who arrived later, took over the room and then turned all the lights out at 10 pm before I’d had a chance, after returning from dinner, to rearrange things for early departure in the morning or get things together for potential sleep. Communal living. Not that much fun.
St. Jean station, Bordeaux
I say potential sleep because there was little actual sleep between the pitch black that I’m unused to sleeping in, the difficulty picking one’s way to the bathroom with an iPhone screen light stumbling over everyone else’s belongings, the expectation of being totally quiet/not rummaging for belongings, and worrying about the next day’s train and bus connections. Not horrible, just unpleasant, especially because I thought I’d booked a private room. The French guy had scouted out the situation and wisely stayed downstairs until midnight before turning in.
No harm done. Pas grave.
San Sebastian, Spanish Colonial architecture, or something close to that.
I’ve been trying to understand the newest iteration of the train system better. There have been some ambiguities, and Bordeaux’s station is a massive madhouse. To make things more complicated, this particular train splits in half later on, the latter section going to Tarbes. All seats were filled out of Bordeaux, many probably trying to work around the planned strike/grève days starting again tomorrow. They’re objecting to Macron’s trying to take away benefits and jobs from public service workers. The every-year plane, train and bus strikes are wearing for travelers, especially those with jobs with limited time to get some travel in.
On the longer trains, there is also a system for figuring out where to stand for your assigned car (and if you get it wrong, you’ll end up in Tarbes instead of Hendaye), based on a digital board that tells you how your car corresponds to points on the platform marked with letters from the alphabet. But you’d have to know that the platform STARTS with “Z” and proceeds backwards to make any sense out of it and to keep yourself from being in a car that splits off and goes to another place. The Bordeaux to Hendaye leg was on a TGV (high speed train), but either I’ve grown used to them or this one wasn’t remarkably fast.
Seated next to me between Montauban and Bordeaux was a scholar with luminous blue eyes who is writing a piece about the architectural history of the Loire Valley. He asked for proofreading help for a couple of short English sections and I could only find two tiny imperfections. He was translating it into German next. He helped at Bordeaux by saying “Beaucoup du monde descendent ici” (many get off here”), letting me know that getting a jump on the crush getting out of the double-decker car was a good idea. I told him “Je vous suivrai”. I will follow you, and I was glad to have had the warning.
Cathedral, San Sebastian, Espagne
So, if I were to give advice about the LePuy route, I’d say. 1.) Speak at least intermediate-level French and have PRACTICED a great deal with others who are more proficient 2.) Careful with chambres d’hôtes unless they really are proficient English-speakers because of the vagaries of the arrhes (deposit) requirements and the cost to the host if there is miscommunication (unless you like being accused of lying and are ok with them lying in wait on your hike to harass you when you pass). And 3.) You could stop this leg in Figeac for maximum charm in minimum time, although Cahors is nice.
But it really is a difficult hike, so be prepared for that as well.
After Cahors-Montauban-Bordeaux-Hendaye, I took the Euskotren (the Basque narrow-gauge railroad) from France into San Sebastián in Spain, bypassing Irun altogether. The station is just to the right as you exit the main Hendaye train station (the terminus for this line). Research paid off, and not being so driven to get to a certain place certainly paid off. I’d not planned the lodging for the rest of the trip because was unsure how this transition day would go, or how the hiking would be onward on the Norte/Primitivo/Verde.
The differences between cultures was immediately recognizable. After the quiet, reserved, polite French trains came the more boisterous, expressive behavior more typical of the Basques/Spaniards.
Fortune smiles. I had to ask directions out of the light rail station in San Sebastian to get oriented and across the river to the Renfe and autobus estacions. I’d misjudged how easy it would be to get on an ALSA westbound to either Bilbao or Santander this afternoon and got “stuck”. It’s a good idea to buy ALSA tickets a little in advance at least, and they now have an app (although I think with the app you still have to stop to get a ticket at the departing station’s desk as of this writing). Getting “stuck” is in quotes because once I got a look at even the beginning of this gorgeous, vibrant Spanish city, it was obvious that it would be a pleasure to be here….if only I could find a hotel. I got a ticket out for 09:10 ALSA bus to Santander tomorrow, went to the tourismo for a city map and with a little looking, found everything I could have possibly hoped for in a hotel. It’s very comfortable, the staff is delightful, and it’s a trendy, designer-ish kind of place. Just the antidote for nights of Spartan living on the trail.
The young woman who did my registration gave great tips on what to do. I walked the river out to the sea, saw the sunbathers, the surfers, and the massive, sharply cubed “art” rocks at the mouth of the river. The whole city is out on promenade after the work day is done. Young, old, babies, families, lovers, tourists, cyclists, skaters, pintxos-eaters and wine drinkers. There’s live music, a carousel, and more squares teeming with Spaniards doing what they do than I can count. It is a beautiful city with its monuments, parks, river walks, old Spanish architecture, a very large old quarter, new Spanish architecture, and happy, relaxed hoards milling through the old quarter streets. Add the seaside, the mountains in the distance and the beautiful churches, and the sum total is a real and unexpected pleasure.
I walked all over for a few hours, got pintxos/tapas para llevar, came back to this comfortable room, and had a feast.
Bet if I tried really, really hard, I could get “stuck” here again tomorrow night……but will push on at least to Santander tomorrow. Time for a comfortable, long nights’ sleep.
I’ve seen this in art books, but there is no plaque explaining this in its position at the side of the Cathedral in Cahors. Bizarre, no? Some sort of fallen angel, I’m guessing.
I’ve been trying to eat the regional specialties, so today after some sightseeing and scouting out the situation at the train station, I found a little place near the gite to have lunch since le checkin wasn’t for hours yet. The specialty was Salade Quercynoise, and it was to have fois gras and some chèvre in it. But….it came fairly smothered in canard. Enough with the duck already.
The walk was peaceful along the river and I got to Cahors in about 3 hours without seeing one hiker. The path passed through several farming areas seemingly run exclusively by younger French women operating heavy machinery and collecting produce. There was a light rain for most of the walk and, so far, the sun has only come out once for about 10 minutes all day. Have I mentioned that it’s still cold?
Pont Valentre’, Cahors, 14th siecle + Vintage French Chemin de Fer (railroad) advertising art poster for the rail route Paris a’ Orleians (the rail station today is not far from this). I’m very fond of French advertising art from this period, and a more subtly-colored version of this same poster on the right inhabits my Salon. I’ve not regretted making it a forefront part of my home since – because to be reminded of where one has been that was enriching and out-of-one’s daily life is worth a great deal.
There are only 5 of us at the gite tonight. Maggie is one of them. Solange is here, but her husband is arriving tonight to collect her at the end of her walk.
Maggie has invited me for dinner at 18:30 and she’d heard that there’s some sort of music festival going on where we could listen to music during dinner. We’d roamed for about an hour to find a place that suited both a gluten-free person and an overdosed-on-duck person. I’d voted at the beginning for a place that had falafels, but we got an overview of our alternatives and settled on a place that had crêpes/galettes and also had a steak for Maggie. Afterwards, we found the musical event, but it was actually a party in a courtyard down an alley, more like a private community drinking event where a donation was expected, and no food available. By then, sleep sounded better.
I thought I’d asked for a private room, but I’m on the 4th floor in a 4-bedded room….and my roommate is a large, tall, younger Frenchman who speaks only a little English. He seems pleasant, and, like me, seems content to quietly hang out in bed and use the WiFi, so that’s good. We’ve established that he’s from Clermont-Ferrand and on a 10-day vacation from his job, so he will walk to Moissac only this time. And we’ve established that it won’t bother him if I set my alarm for 06:30 in order to be at the train station in time.
Once again, as punaise prevention, we’ve been told to leave all shoes and backpacks downstairs, even our alternative shoes. We’re supposed to wear plastic clogs that the albergue provides within the gite. There are tricky, complicated lock instructions to get in and out involving getting a key out of a box with a code and returning it on the way out, so that will probably be my undoing in the morning. The hospitalero explained twice, saying that sometimes AMERICANS had trouble with the lock instructions (by this time, I’m asking myself whose idea it was to do France yet again anyway?? Oh yeah…..).
The cathedral is vast, dark, and brooding, with several domes. The flat wall artwork has been refurbished beautifully. It is ….can I use the word amazing without sounding trite? Because it really is something to see.
Yesterday I’d pinned my blue shirt to my backpack to dry in whatever sun happened to show itself, and although the shirt dried, it had been pooped on by a bird (I suspect them of doing this for fun, like target practice).
Yesterday on arrival in Bouziès, a sudden and stupendously loud roar erupted from the sky. Although perhaps only 3 confusing seconds had passed since the sound began, a MIG had already passed overhead and was streaking off into the blue yonder. The staff at the hotel restaurant said they barely notice them because they pass overhead frequently. Later, another MIG and today a fighter jet. There are several French Airforce Bases in this general part of France. Fun, exciting, and not what you expect to see or hear on a peaceful hike in remote rural France.
I started getting angry emails from a chambre d’hôte owner who mistakenly thought I’d made a reservation with her…. full of really unpleasant, aggressive comments. I made the mistake of telling her I was in Bouziès, and when I passed by her place today, she was waiting by the road pretending to be pulling weeds to try to intercept me for what promised to be more abuse, so I didn’t respond when she kept calling out my name. Several of the places I contacted for lodging during planning wanted deposits (arrhes) for a reservation, and it had to be made by French check or by bank transfer, the latter of which incurs two charges amounting to around $10 US and a trip to the bank to get it accomplished. Almost none of these privately owned lodging possibilities required to stay along the way in this rural area take credit cards, and although occasionally one does PayPal, most don’t. I’d conveyed that instead of booking, if I still needed lodging, I’d try calling a few days ahead of arrival in her village to see if they still had availability since the I wouldn’t be able to satisfy the arrhes/deposit requirement. Evidently it got lost in translation and evidently it’s ok to abuse and try to intercept people for a 1:1 confrontation when they pass by on their hike. The woman also accosted Maggie on her way through and asked if she were “Bette Callahan”. The woman also evidently made some anti-American comments. It has bothered me because I would never have done this deliberately and could not get her to accept that this was a malcomprehension rather than a willfully disrespectful act. I’d considered sending her some money, but my sympathy for her situation as a small business owner struggling to survive ended with continued nasty emails and this aggressive attempt to intercept me on the road for more abuse. My sister Laurel has also had a nasty run-in with a French Air-B&B owner and been treated badly when there was nothing she could have done as a non-French-speaker to fix the maintenance-related problem. My sister calls it a “French landlord” issue. It didn’t diminish the other good parts of the trip thus far, but it does make me think that using the chambres d’hôtes or the gites that don’t speak good English or take PayPal or credit cards isn’t a good idea, and it makes me less likely to go back for this kind of visit. A forum acquaintance had similarly difficult experiences on the Arles route recently as well.
There just wasn’t much good about this day. Not much to see. Problematic traffic. Steep ascents and descents on paths that had deeply-piled, very large new rock dumped on them that were really difficult to walk on. Sketchy trail marking. Hostile dogs. No coffee or places to stop for a sandwich for the whole 20k. No épicerie or pharmacy in this town about 11km from Cahors, and the boulangerie that reopened at 16:30 was pretty much sold out.
The bright spot is the chambre d’hôte for this night. It’s on Booking.com, named Les 3 Cochons d’Olt (The 3 Pigs of Olt – Olt being a designation for some of the villages along the Lot river), owned by a Dutch/British couple with school-aged kids. They speak English. The home is spacious, very comfortable, and has a great garden in back. They renovated it themselves, and I have a large wing on the first floor to myself. They offered to make dinner, but tonight I’m eating in front of the restaurant next door on the corner across from the mairie. A salad with walnuts, cucumbers, goats cheese and tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette. Duck in gravy. Zucchini, tomato and pepper melange and cheesy rice. Then a light eggy custard with graham crumbles, sliced strawberries and some cinnamon vanilla bean ice cream. Usually it’s impossible to eat enough calories to NOT lose weight on these long-distance hikes, but in France I doubt that I’m losing any at all.
I’ll walk the river to Cahors tomorrow and hope for a better hike. It will be my last night in France, and I’m very ready to move on to Spain, as am beginning to get that alone and adrift feeling without other hikers around. I ran into none all day, nor do there seem to be any in town. It probably would have made sense to stop in Figeac, unless Cahors is something special.
But the bed is comfy and earlier I dozed off dreaming that the cars passing just outside my window were MIGS.
I left this morning not far behind the Aussie-and-Brit guys’ group and had planned to stop on the way out at the boulangerie for coffee, but, of course, it’s WEDNESDAY, and unlike the usual Saturday afternoon-to-Tuesday a.m. rural France business closings, this place chose Wednesday to close. But no worries.
Since I’d scrambled up and down the official GR-651 last evening to see the Cro Magnon cave paintings at Pech Merle, I didn’t feel too bad about pushing the easy button and taking the road to Bouziès. There were some bad sections where getting off to the side for intermittent cars was difficult, so when I saw a river path, I scrambled down and walked along the river until the path ran out. So I bushwhacked back up and have been picking off leaves and stick-tights and twigs since.
View from room
I discovered stinging nettle the other day and was just hoping that the sudden stinging wasn’t something extremely toxic. It wasn’t and isn’t.
It only took about 1.5 hours to walk to the bridge across the Lot River to Bouziès. Only one car OR pedestrians can get across at one time for the bridge, so there is some cooperation required. Bouziès turns out to be a very nice little village, charming like the rest, and a hub for kayaking and river cruises. It’s the lower town before the climb to St-Cirq-Lapopie, St-Cirq-Lapopie being both fun to say and another “most beautiful village in France”. Bouziès is also the start of the Chemin de Halages, one of the prettiest walks imaginable. It’s along the river and parts were originally blasted out of the cliffs to make a path for oxen or draft horses to tow the barges needed for commerce up and down the river. An artist has carved a stretch of rock face in shapes such as nautilus shells, using the natural curves of the rock to make a more 3-D effect. It’s narrow in places, and falling into the river would be easy. Based on evidence, it looks like it’s used as a bridle path also, which seems like it would be an issue with the many tourists walking it up the 3.5km to St-Cirq-Lapopie. It was a really pleasant walk on a beautiful day. Smiles partout.
The cliffs are just massive, and the signs to watch out for falling rocks strike me as funny. Are people supposed to catch them as they fall to avoid being squashed? Will being aware of the potential for them falling help you save yourself?
St-Cirq-Lapopie IS a charming place. I didn’t mind that it was touristy and boutiquey…..a few weeks of village after village with no services at all will do that, I suppose. The hotel here in Bouziès is friendly and accommodating, so I booked demi-pension, asked to leave my backpack to walk up to St Cirq, and was given my room early. The French have expectations, and sometimes it’s not entirely clear whether they’re serving the customer or the other way around, but they do seem to say “yes” often to requests when I’m expecting them to probably say “no”, so it’s like un petit bisou when that happens. And I enjoyed the waiter from India and a young ?German? kid working the dining room. Tom points out that I am overly-concerned with spreading international bon volunté/good will, but Americans are thought ill of sometimes, and I would rather do what I can to avoid being a stereotype.
Several towns in the guide were said to have cafés that had none at all, so it’s a good idea to carry a little food. And it’s important to be careful about having enough water, because the sources are sometimes few and far between, and some in the guides are dry in summer. I seem to be off the GR 651 now and onto the GR 36 toward Cahors, which is now 28 km away.
After climbing to a high vantage point in St-Cirq, visiting the cliff top church, browsing the shops and buying a verreeee-French long-sleeved shirt (which surely means that it will now turn roasting hot), I stopped at a charming restaurant and had une assiette vegetarienne avec tempura, which was more than I could have hoped for, and I’m instagramming it to Out of the Fire because it was so extraordinary. Tempura-battered sprigs of herb. Tempura-battered paper-thin slices of crispy zucchini. Tempura battered FLOWERS (fleur de courgette, the flower from the zucchini plant), and a few unexpected patties of tempura battered mashed potato, whole roasted garlic, and mushroom, all accompanied by a decorated soft lettuce composition: mustard vinaigrette, tiny green pickled peppers, tiny red berries on their stems, snipped chives, bits of carrot, and thin shreds of red onion. Top that off with an after-lunch coffee Americano, and you have a very happy randonneuse.
The Belgian couple arrived in St-Cirq and sat down at the sidewalk café. They’re headed for the other route to Cahors. Some of the French female hikers turned up with Maggie in their group, so that’s good. I’m enjoying moving about on my own again and am running across so many friendly, happy people. The perfect weather helped make a memorable day full of good things.
The route I took back down to the Chemin de Halage had the scent of fennel, and it was intoxicating. It’s been an all-around very good day.
I’ll eat here at the hotel tonight. There’s a TV in the room (which is mostly annoying, but I’m catching more and more of what’s being said/am struggling less with the language, and at least they aren’t banging on in French about Trump). Impressively, the heater even works, which means I won’t have to sleep with 3 layers on like last night, and my hand washed clothes will get dry overnight.
Breakfast at Gite St Pierre featured buttery, soft, flaky, warm croissants straight from the bakery. And homemade butternut squash spread and fig jam and coffee with everyone from the gite, served at the restaurant.
Maggie had started out already and skipped breakfast there related to the gluten-free issue and breakfast being mostly bread, but she’d gotten off-course and was coming out of a not-on-the-route path when I passed among a few others leaving for the day’s ups and downs.
The first view arrived before the fog had even started burning off.
We were walking on top of a massive limestone cliff.
Maggie had hoped for some coffee, and on the side of the path in the middle of nowhere we saw a sign for a gite and there were people out on the gite’s deck. Maggie is much more bold than I about this sort of thing, and although we’d talked about the fact that gites can be a vacation rental or they can be a guest houses for hikers and tourists, when she asked if there was any coffee, the people welcomed us onto the deck, made us coffee, brought us little sweets to accompany the coffee, asked us if we wanted to eat breakfast. Then an entire family came out to greet us and exchange information in Franglais. As it turns out, they were a vacationing family and were leaving to visit Pech Merle shortly, yet they welcomed us in, gave us coffee, and treated us like family. And wouldn’t take money.
We walked to Sauliac-sur-Célé in cold and off-and-on rain, which is getting wearing. In Sauliac, we switched to the D41 and walked it another 10 km past a “chateau”, some more houses seemingly superglued into the cliffs, and an abandoned church or two built into the edges of the cliffs.
Near our goal of Cabrerets, we passed a picnic area with day-hikers stopped for picnic lunches and then beyond the next bend found an odd scene….kind of a roadside attraction set in the narrow space between the road and the cliff face: bicycles affixed to the cliff face, bicycle riders with skulls and an odd assortment of other items appearing to be there to attract the attention of passers-by. A canvass panel arose on some sort of mechanical lift, carnival-like and probably on a motion-sensor to rise abruptly when people passed by. As that’s what we were doing….passing by on foot…..we both took a quick picture or two from this odd tableau and then heard a bellowing voice that we both thought was an audio part of this Pirates of the Caribbean-like scene, sort of like a mechanical roadside attraction. But then an aggressive, enraged man with long, wild gray hair and crazy eyes came flying out of his house, got within 8 inches of my face and threatened to break my iPhone for taking a picture (of what was right there on a public road). To have my iPhone broken by a maniac would leave me essentially cut off from contact from anyone, so this had potential to be serious. I had to decide quickly how to handle it. I had no idea if he even had any right to demand that no pictures be taken. He was yelling in French “I am an ARTIST” and just sounded deranged. I decided that he wanted the photos gone rather than to assault me, so treated him like every other agitated mental health patient I’ve ever had to deal with and calmly told him in French that I’d be happy to delete the pictures and showed him that I was deleting them to his satisfaction (and hoped that if he went to grab the camera, I could keep ahold of it). When I reported this in town, they were aware of him doing this, were completely unconcerned and unsympathetic, and downplayed it all. Once again, we are only hikers and are gone the next day. A girl even said “if you go into his museum, he’s usually pretty nice to people once you’re inside”(?????!!). So, once again, all of this is OK ….. local allegiance is ALWAYS with the local person no matter what the behavior, and nothing is ever done about problem people since the ones affected are only visitors. If I’d wanted to get him an arm’s distance away before he broke my camera or attacked me, the town would have supported this maniac. Calm won in this particular situation and having worked for years in psychiatry helped. And having received some self-defense training backed it all up with some underlying confidence.
Maggie and I had an excellent lunch on the river deck of the Hotel des Grottes where I’m staying, and then I got ready to go to Pech Merle. She’s deciding how she’ll proceed, as is supposed to meet a friend in a few days. I stopped at the boulangerie, as just don’t feel like sitting in the dining room tonight trying to be sociable, and then headed off for Pech Merle, which is 1km straight up a rock path and since it was STILL raining, the path had a river running down it.
Pech Merle was sort of worth doing, even in the rain and cold. They had a laminated booklet in English, and the guide made sure I, as the only non-French-speaker, was included when he pointed things out. The paintings are from 25,000 years ago. I had on a short sleeved shirt with a long-sleeved shirt over, then a quilted vest, and then the rain jacket, so had sweated on the way up and then been freezing in the caves.
Maggie intercepted me on the way back down to the hotel wanting to talk with someone in English. She’s still undecided about where to go next. We talked and walked the whole day, and I discovered that she is also a Jordan Peterson fan. She has lived between Australia, Singapore, London and New York her whole life and has travelled everywhere.
The hotel is nice, and it’s good to have a private room, but it still has no heat, no blow dryer, no way to get damp clothes dry, the dark, narrow halls have unexpected steps up and down, and the locks and toilet flush required new skills, but I’m glad to be here. Everyone has gone home and the 2 staff are having dinner. I think I’m ready for the rain and cold to stop and possibly to be done with the France part of the walk.
The staff has just announced that they’re going home and will be back in the morning. And asked me to shut off the lights when I’m done using the WiFi in the common room. This is not unusual. I seem to be the only person in this old stone hotel on a river in a rural part of France. All kinds of scenarios ran through my head that I had to will myself to stop entertaining in order to prevent getting spooked, and it was strange to have the silent and dark place all to myself…… but kind of a thrill at the same time, and I slept well.
I still have no idea how one would get help in an emergency with no cell service and with the staff leaving after dinner until the next day at 4pm. But I concluded that some trust was in order and decided to let it go.
A good time was had by all at dinner and things were set up for the usual breakfast in the morning: orange juice, bread, coffee (which quickly ran out), cereal, yoghurt and milk.
It was raining when I left and I ran into Maggie, who doesn’t get breakfast because she’s gluten intolerant. I’d checked with the staff and decided to walk the road today related to the rain, mud, and elevation gain. Maggie was interested in road-walking also. After seeing what the others looked like coming into Marcilhac-sur-Célé, I’m glad we did. They’d been struggling with the steep ascents and descents on rocks and mudslides all day while we’d been discovering backroads along the river down pretty lanes with walled gardens and calla lilies. We stopped in front one of the houses built directly into the rock cliff to marvel, and the owner invited us up to have a closer look at these unusual structures.
Maggie and “Brexit” in front of Matt and Sarah’s gite.
We exchanged looks and stifled laughter every time the others mentioned how bad the day of walking had been because we’d skipped the struggle and pushed the easy button. The couple from Belgium had decided to do the same thing, and between the four of us, we decided to keep it a secret among ourselves so as not to be thought slackers.
We arrived early in Marcilhac-Sur-Célé, a town that was memorable for several reasons, all of them good. When we rolled in around noon, far too early to register at the gite, an old woman pointed us in the right direction and said hello every time we passed. We tried to find a boulangerie for coffee and a sandwich, but the boulangerie was closed for the week, not just for the usual Sunday-Monday closing. A local man actually walked us to the boulangerie and when it was closed, he walked us most of the way to the epicerie/little grocery. We got coffees, fruit and some couscous for lunch and sat on the patio with the locals who included us in their group at the table. There was a young guy who had worked as an itinerant miner all over the world and who was very sweet. He had a place there on the river for the summer and invited us up for tea later.
The streets and some of the buildings throughout the entire little town are torn up, yet it is STILL beautiful. The town stands in front of a backdrop of massive limestone cliffs and the Céle river, and the sheer scale of the cliffs is impressive. Evidently, they’re turning the place into a manicured tourist town, paid for by the department of Figeac, and have been working at it since March. Kind of like Ligonier, except Ligonier now just looks like a gulag.
On the way to see the abbey ruins and the massive church, Maggie ran across someone in a doorway who she thought was with the tourism office, which was, of course, closed. The guy invited us in and said they ran a gite and would be happy to feed us (another) lunch for 8 Euro. We were welcomed into the place where a variety of the hosts’ friends were assembled for lunch and conversation. The hosts were Brits named Matt and Sarah, a brother and sister, who had evidently grown up in a tough situation and and helped each other all their lives, moving about, working as musicians and at a variety of other jobs, and reinventing themselves whenever they grew tired of the last iteration of life they’d created. She was a violin player and he played Japanese flute, and they’d lived in Japan for a few years. In Japan, Sarah had married a man with the understanding that they were moving to Canada to start a B&B, but neither the marriage nor the plans had worked out. Sarah and Matt owned several properties in Marcilhac-sur-Célé, and I’ve rarely met more interested and interesting people. They seemed to appreciate everything. Their gite property flowed right into the abbey ruins without barrier. We talked about politics, life, and Matt’s having gone boating off the coast of Nicaragua with the Frenchman who owned and operated the gite WE were booked into. Once off the coast in their boat, they were promptly pirated. Everything was taken, and the pirates had been about to cut their sails and leave them adrift until the two talked them into leaving the sails alone. Evidently, these pirating situations have ended much worse.
They fed us a plate of delicious roasted veggies in lemon and garlic, with bread and cheese and wine for Maggie. And hugged us goodbye and invited us back to say goodbye in the morning as if we were old friends. I was surprised by their generosity and their way of living, and will remember them. Had it not been for the less timid Maggie, I would have missed out on much on that extraordinary day.
By then it was time for check-in, so we did the usual chores – hand washing laundry, getting showered, looking at the next day’s plans. It has been very cool and rainy, which was not what I’d had in mind for a June walk in France, and I’ve been cold and damp for days, but seem to be able to keep just enough clothes dry to stay almost warm enough. We had lentils and sausage for dinner, served in the restaurant attached to the gite, and for dessert, a melty, gluten-free chocolate dessert which Ombeline, the wife of the couple, had made for gluten-free Maggie and everyone else as well. People from other gites came to eat at the restaurant also, and a very long table was assembled full of people speaking Franglais with only a current lifestyle in common, but a great many things to talk about. In fact, I cannot remember ever seeing the kind of openness and community that I’ve seen on the French part of this trip.
Everyone fell asleep fairly early. We had a bunk room of four, and again a very pleasant male in our room. We met two Australian men and a Brit who had been going on adventure vacations for 27 years together who had their own room on our floor, and then after passing through our room, there were other rooms on the next floor up.
It was a day to remember. Really pretty incredible that things are unfolding like they have. Maybe this is a dream.
NotesfromaHike 