Category: Spain (Page 3 of 5)

We began our day making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on day-old baguette. Along with a couple of apples, this became a welcome lunch on a hiking day with few villages and no cafes. Our goal was to stay the night at a monastery in Sobrado that has been housing pilgrims on del Norte since the Middle Ages, Monsteiro de Santa María de Sobrado dos Monxes (in Galician).

We left Baamonde for Miraz on Thursday morning, hiking the first several kilometers along a busy road with cars and trucks, decidedly our least favorite walking surface. But as the Camino turned off the highway, we crossed the Rio Parga using a medieval stone bridge (really) and walked into a forest and nature preserve.

As we neared the end of our walk to Santiago de Compostela, we realized that we needed to calculate backwards from the date we fly home to know how many days of walking remained. So little time left! We came up with a plan for our remaining days on the Camino.

As we have walked across Spain, two of our guidelines have been to avoid busy highways when possible and to choose the the coastline route when given the choice. On three consecutive days in the last week — our walks from Otur to Navia, Tapia de Casariega and Ribadeo — we left the traditional Camino for part of each day to walk along gorgeous coastal paths.

On Friday we walked in a light rain from Queruas to Otur, passing through small hamlets and twisting around farms and fields. The only urban outpost on the route was the port city of Luarca. Leaving there, the rural terrain and buildings were feeling familiar and comfortable. Descending a hill, we noticed the remains of a very old and somewhat overgrown stone building alongside a small stream.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of last week took us through a large section of Asturias. We stayed at Fali’s Albergue in Muros de Nalón on Tuesday and the beautiful train station Albergue de Peregrinos in Novellana on Wednesday. Both offered delicious communal dinners and filling breakfasts. On Thursday night, we stayed in Queruas at La Yalga, a comfortable but less pilgrim-friendly stay. Relive videos for each day are at the end of this post.

We took a bit of a break after our stay at the farmhouse albergue in Peón. In the morning we set off with four friends on a path that started with a serious climb and descent.

As we gathered around the fireplace at the farmhouse Albergue Peón, the topic of conversation among peregrinos was the sense of accomplishment in completing an extended climb that afternoon. Not our highest climb, but one of the steepest and definitely the longest continuous effort! Even though we hadn’t climbed together, there was bonding around the shared experience.

We hiked 18 miles and gained 1,427 feet in elevation as we walked to Villaviciosa on Saturday. A fairly long hike, but it felt relaxed and enjoyable, even in the light rain.