The Stone Site

Walking for more than ten(?) consecutive days we are not so thrilled any more about the walk of the day, to put it mildly. One could expect that pain should be gone long time ago, but the good things of being 55+ is that things tends to last longer 😉

Enough complaining! During today’s walking I got a bit interested in the properties people try to sell. It’s a lot of objects with potential, perhaps too much potential! Or is it that someone just hope that a dumb ass swede will fall in love with it and buy something that has been on their get-rid-off-list the last twenty years? The one at bottom right could be nice as your own “game of thrones” house, or… So perhaps it works!

Other interesting things we see a lot of are cows. Looks like people are having about 8 to 10 of them and from time to time they take them out for a walk together with their dogs. That’s a good, concrete task to do!

How about the answers and great wisdom that should be gotten while walking? Eh – haven’t got or found anything big yet! Perhaps I should just sit still somewhere and wait and the answers will come running towards me!

We are accompanied with hundreds of pilgrims mainly school classes and scouts. They are all quite heavily dressed in their uniforms and behave well. Of course some kind of pilgrim congestion happens when the decide to stop and other pilgrims run into them. It’s a bit strange to put up the phone to take a picture of it, but this is my best try so far however not at all the worst traffic jam situation.

The weather is quite fine, bright but cold and no rain. But in the afternoon arriving to the destination it can still be a bit challenging due to the sun and temperature. Portomarín is located on a hill so the last km was a bit of a hill climbing!

To get the “Camino Diploma” you can start at Sarria and then do 100 km to Santiago. And many do!

The whole city is like a hot, boiling kettle where everyone one is keen on starting or finalising their Camino. There are a lot of groups from different schools – so we absolutely not be alone anymore!

There is also a special pilgrim office focusing on this final lap providing all information needed.

Let’s see, but I’m quite sure that this part of the Camino will be unique in its way…,

Today’s walk from Triacastela to Sarria can be done in many ways, there are at least three alternatives. Two of them include the famous monastery of Samos and who wouldn’t like to see that? It’s just six km extra walking…

To see the Monastery from inside you have to take a guided tour only given in Spanish. That’s quite ok if you gonna see some action!

Of course we didn’t expect to see monks monkey around for money, but it was quite far from what we expected and not about a life in a monastery. However we behaved good and studied all the detailed pictures showing the last years renovation and tried to look deeply interested.

To see the monastery we had to pay with two extra hours of walking. And that went quite fine walking a bit unfamiliar roads until we met this guy …

I think he tries to figure out what the heck we are doing there … and so did we! To get back on trail I decided to do a special, very short shortcut through the forest, along a kind of road that only existed on the map but not longer in reality. And if you wonder what’s the benefit of having a more traditional pilgrim outfit like below compared to modern shorts, I can absolutely give you one. Stinging Nettles or should I say massively, strong, wild, beastly crazy Stinging Nettles!

The good part with shorts is that you get something that last for many hours, it lasts even after a good shower and it’s absolutely free!

Liñares could certainly be a wonderful view if it hadn’t been for the fog and complete darkness, but the sign looks very promising. So, here is the astounding view of San Roque.

… instead of enjoying the view we walked up the mountain, then down and up again. There must be some one out there, wanting the pilgrims to be very extra fit when they reach the end destination and therefore avoid any straight roads. As complement to the fog it started to rain, so for the first time it was poncho time. And pilgrims get the special Quasimodo look making them easy to differ from the normal people.

Tomorrow, we reach (hopefully) Sarria, it is the entry point for many pilgrims doing the short version of the Camino. And the number is increasing and the skill decreasing. Meet a guy bicycling and in these slippery, steep downhill parts you need to be an experienced cyclist – he was not! I could even feel the pain by myself as he was sliding off his bike in different hurtful ways. Ouch!

Galicia is a new and different experience for us. I’m getting the feeling that Asterix or Obelix could be coming out running after some Roman officer … just any minute!

And yes, I like the milestones. Now we know exactly how many meters left – that’s very motivating!