Just got back from what is probably our craziest trip yet and figured some here might find it interesting. This is going to be a long one…I’ll probably break it up into daily installments just to make it more manageable.

My wife, son, and I did a stretch of the Camino Santiago over the past two weeks, specifically the Portuguese Coastal Way from Vigo to Santiago, and the Muxia-Fisterra way from Santiago to Muxia via Fisterra. We also had a day (more of an evening, really) in Istanbul on the way, and a day in Porto at the end.

For those not familiar, the Camino Santiago or St. James Way is a historic Catholic pilgrimage in northern Spain. The most famous route starts in southern France and traverses 800 km to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. But there are numerous other routes that qualify for the pilgrimage as well, including the Portuguese route, which we took. Fisterra/Muxia is an additional route to the sea that some people choose to do after completing their main route. The pilgrimage is typically completed by walking between 20-30km per day, and there are hostels (Albergues) along the route to provide accommodation. These range from municipally operated public dormitories to full-on hotels. While there are still some devout Catholic pilgrims who do the route for spiritual purposes, over the years it has become much bigger than that and people choose to do it for a variety of personal reasons.

My wife did a portion of the Portuguese way from Tui to Santiago a few years ago with a group from our church, but I didn’t get to go. Both of us turned 40 this year, and we also had our 20 year anniversary, so we figured it would be a fun year to do something special. We’ve also taken each of our kids on a trip somewhere as they’ve gotten older, and our middle son is just about that age and had never been overseas, so we figured we’d bring him along.

While we’re Christians, we’re not Catholic, so the official pilgrimage aspect of the trip wasn’t really a draw. Our goal was to spend time together, escape from regular life and get a chance to decompress, meet interesting people and see interesting places. As a type one diabetic who manages my blood sugar through diet and exercise, walking makes my insulin more effective and lets me get away with eating more without having to dose myself up, so that had appeal to me as well.

My wife enjoyed the portion of the Portuguese way that she did the first time, but also wanted to see the Fisterra/Muxia route. The rural nature of that route and the sea appalled to me as well. We only had two weeks, so we decided to start in Vigo, Spain, hike to Santiago, and then continue on to Muxia via Fisterra. This allowed us to complete 100km of the Portuguese Way (the minimum required to qualify for an official “Compostella”) as well as the full Fisterra/Muxia route within the two weeks of vacation time that I had available.

The cheapest tickets we could find were out of Chicago on Turkish Airlines, and when we started looking into it I learned that they will put you up in a hotel for free in Istanbul if your layover there is longer than 21 hours. I figured neither of us had ever been there, so why not take advantage of that, too?


Day 1 - Chicago to Istanbul

On Friday, September 26 we all piled into a friend’s car and drove to Chicago. Naturally, we got stuck in Chicago traffic on 94 and it turned a 2.5 hour drive into a 5 hour one, but thankfully we left with plenty of time. We were travelling with just our backpacks, so check-in and security were pretty easy, and the flight to Istanbul left on-time and was relatively uneventful. The food was even pretty good, and mostly low-carb so I could eat it.



The airport in Istanbul is huge, but also new and ultra-modern. It’s well laid out and passport control and customs were pretty simple. We got some cash at an ATM and then followed the arrows about half a km to the metro station. The Metro pass system there uses a contactless card that you purchase and charge with credit. Apparently there are multiple different types of cards that you can buy, and I accidentally bought one that was only good for the airport metro line…not a huge deal as I figured it out in town when we tried to transfer to the next line and I bought the other card. I never really did figure out how the fare system worked or how much each ride cost, but it wasn’t very expensive.

Our hotel (the ”Grand Yavuz”) was about a mile from the metro stop right in the heart of the historic district. We walked down a busy boulevard in front of the University of Istanbul, and then cut off into some side streets to go the rest of the way. I wouldn’t say they were sketchy by urban standards, but there was a lot of trash and critters running around, and it was definitely a departure from what you’d see in small-town midwest USA. Check-in was quick and painless, the staff were helpful, and there were no demands for money or anything…the Turkish Airlines deal was truly free. The room was small but clean, and we dropped our bags and hit the town. It was about 5pm at this point, so we didn’t have a ton of time.

We walked down the road and stopped at the Blue Mosque. Admission is free, but there was a huge line so we decided to forego that and just check out the courtyard and keep moving.



Haggis Sofia is just up the square. Again, long lines and a steep admission price, so we got our outside pictures and kept going, but even the exterior was pretty impressive.



We kept walking through the historic district until we got to the river and ferry terminals that you can get on to cross the Bosporus. Traffic is crazy…trams lumbering by inches from crowded sidewalks, cars everywhere, cops zipping around 2-deep on motorcycles…it’s an absolute zoo. The ferry is part of the public transit system, so your metro pass card will work on there, too. I’ve never been to Asia before, so crossing the Bosporus and standing on Asian soil was kind of a bucket-list item for me. We grabbed a couple of Turkish bagels from a street vendor and then got in line for the ferry. There are a ton of different ferry routes, and I badged us in not really knowing where it was going, or how we were going to get back. I just figured it was going across, which it did.

The boat traffic in the strait is as insane as the road traffic. Giant cargo ships lumbering through, ferries and sightseeing boats cruising around all over the place, with little runabout mixed in. The congestion is nuts and nobody really seems to be following the nautical rules of the road that I could see, so I don’t know how they don’t have collisions all the time, but we made it across. The ferry was a pretty big boat…probably between 500 and 1000 passengers…and it was old. I have no idea what kind of lifesaving equipment they carry or how much…figured those were probably questions best left unasked!



We made it across the straight without hitting anybody or getting hit, despite a few uncomfortably close calls, and hit up a stand for some kebabs. It was already getting dark, so we topped up our metro pass with more credit at a machine and scanned back in. I asked a cop who confirmed that this ferry went back where we came from (just pointed to our initial departure point on google maps) and we rode back across the strait. The view of the city lit up at sunset was incredible.



After getting off the ferry we walked back to the hotel, past Haggia Sofia and the Blue Mosque again, now all lit up with lights. The streets were still pretty busy, but we had to catch another flight in the morning and wanted to get some sleep. Plus, exposure to Turkish urban night-life with my wife and 12 year-old kid wasn’t high on my list of things to do.

Day 2 - Istanbul to Vigo

Night in the hotel wasn’t bad. It was kinda loud outside until about 2am, but I think that’s just how things are over there. I had trouble sleeping anyway due to jet lag, but it definitely beat a lot of other places I’ve slept on layovers in the past.

The hotel provided breakfast, and it was amazing. Maybe some of the best food of the whole trip. There was an enormous buffet of meats, cheeses, breads, eggs, vegetables, sauces…absolutely incredible. And there were a ton of low carb options. I ate way too much.

The one thing that we hadn’t been able to see the night before was the Grand Bazaar. From what I’d seen online it looked like one of those crazy middle-eastern markets from the movies. It was just up the road and we tried to stop in after checking out, but it was too early in the morning and it was all closed up. So we walked back past the university (now pretty much deserted at that time on a Sunday morning), and took the metro back to the airport.







The flight to Porto was uneventful, and we got through customs pretty quickly. I had some some homework ahead of time and knew that there was a Flixbus leaving for Vigo less than an hour after we arrived, but I hadn’t wanted to buy tickets because I didn’t know if we’d get there and get through customs on time. We had about 20 minutes, and thankfully the airport had open wifi because our phones didn’t have service so I got online and bought tickets.

When the bus showed up the driver scanned the QR codes on the tickets and they didn’t work. I don’t know if they were purchased too close to departure time or what, but she couldn’t get them to come up on her manifest. Thankfully she was Spanish, not Portuguese, so my wife could talk with her. She almost left us there and told us to try again tomorrow (we had no plans for Lodging in Porto overnight, and it would have thrown our whole timetable off), but my wife managed to convince her to look through her system again and she finally found our names. The tickets still wouldn’t scan but she let us on the bus. Flixbus driver awesome…flixbus app not so much.



We had a really nice bus ride north out of Portugal and into Spain, with a few small stops along the way. We got to Vigo about sundown, and the sunset over the bay was just beautiful. We had no reservations made for anywhere at this point, and our plan was just to check into the municipal albergue and start our hike in the morning. I didn’t realize how risky this was, but thankfully it worked out. The albergue was about a mile or so from the bus stop, and when we got there the lady was super nice and helpful.

We didn’t have our “pilgrims passport” documents yet as we were hoping to buy them at the hostel. These are a little booklet like a passport that you use to collect stamps along the way to show that you are an active pilgrim. The lady told us they didn’t have them there, but that we could get them at the tourist information center in the morning, or at the Catholic church down the road. She checked us in anyway, and even opened up an empty dorm area so we had that area to ourselves for the first night. This was probably better for everybody as we were still working through jet lag and I was awake on and off throughout the night.

We had no cell service the entire trip. All of the albergues had wifi, but this particular one (and numerous others) used a system that required entering a phone number and texting your credentials to you for your wifi access. Not exactly possible when your phone has no service to start with. I didn’t really mind being out of touch with the world, but there were times throughout the trip where it made things difficult as registration and payment for various services had to be done online.

Day 3 - Vigo to Redondela

We woke up pretty early and were out the door well before 8:00, when all of the municipal albergues require you to depart. We went to the church hoping to get our pilgrim’s passport, but it was closed, so we spent about an hour walking around the area trying to find a place to get one. Nothing was open. We finally ended up back at the church and decided to just start for Redondela and try to get one there, or find one along the way.



My wife had downloaded an app called “Buen Camino” that included a map of the route, and thankfully even though we had no cell service the location feature worked. We pretty easily found the route, which is marked by the shell symbol and arrows, as well as periodic mileposts along the way.



The route led us down along the waterfront and then up a steep hill that overlooked the city. We tried several cafes and churches along the way, but nobody could get us a passport. It was a beautiful day, though, and the view back over the city and the river was stunning. There are a couple of rocky islands out at the mouth of the bay that are a Spanish National Park. They looked like they’d be fun to visit sometime.





It was a relatively short day of walking…only about 16km, and we got to the albergue about 11:30. It didn’t open until 1:00, so we wondered around town for a bit and found another place that we could buy our “passports” so we got that done and had them when we checked into the the albergue.

This particular albergue is in a building that was originally some kind of fort that protected the bridge in the middle of town. It was nice and clean, but filled up very early with a long line of people wanting to check in when the doors opened. This became a theme on the last 100km of the Portuguese way.


After checking in we explored the town. We found a grocery store and got some lunch, which we ate in a little park. There were a couple of rivers full of fish and a community building that had of all things an original piece of the Berlin Wall out front. We spent the afternoon resting and wondering the town, and got some supper at a little cafe. My son got to try calamari for the first time, and he actually really liked it.

Day 4 - Redondela to Pontevedra

Sleep wasn’t great that night. There was a lot of snoring in the dorm. I swear one guy was about to suffocate and he kept gasping for breath. I debated back and forth about checking on him or hoping he would just die so it would stop. He did not die, and it continued until morning. It was hot that night even though the windows were open, and somebody kept banging glass bottles around outside. Coupled with the persistent jet lag, I got very little sleep.

This was a 13 mile day, and the hiking was tougher. We started out a little after 7:00 and walked out of town, and then it was up hill for a while.





Eventually we hit a dirt path that was even steeper, but at the top we had a nice view back down over the river before we dropped down into the town of Arcade.



Arcade had a really cool old Roman bridge, and some tight windy streets. We followed a sign for a cafe that was supposed to be open and looked like it had pretty reasonable prices, but when we got there it was closed. The Spanish daily schedule is pretty much the opposite of the pilgrim routine, and business hours are more of a suggestion. They typically open for a bit in the morning for breakfast and coffee, then close about the time you want to eat lunch for a several hour afternoon siesta, then re-open in the evening just before you’re ready to go to bed.



After leaving Arcade, we climbed another big hill, and by this point we were getting pretty hungry. Thankfully, there was a guy who had parked a food truck at the top of the mountain in the woods, and had a bunch of tables and chairs set up in a clearing. We got a couple of empanadas to hold us over until lunch in Pontevedra.



We got to the municipal albergue in Pontevedra about an hour before they opened and waited at the gate with some others until somebody showed up and checked us in. We got our beds and then went across the parking lot to an Aldi to get stuff for lunch, which we ate back at the albergue.

While we were getting settled I met a guy from South Carolina and another from LA who had both started in Porto. It was cool to talk to some other Americans and get their impressions of their trip.

After lunch we went out and walked around the city of Pontevedra. I really liked it…big enough to be interesting but not big enough to be daunting. It was set up nicely for walking, and we checked out the central square, a couple of churches, and walked the sidewalk along the river for a couple of miles.



After the riverwalk we found a church with a tower you could climb for a euro, so we went up and got some views of the city from above.



On the way back to the albergue my wife and son got some Doner Kebabs at a little shop, and I picked up another salad from Aldi. Eating out in Spain is expensive…probably not much moreso than here, but our family doesn’t do that either. We mostly gravitated towards cheap street food or grocery stores throughout the entire trip. The whole Keto thing hasn’t really caught on over there which made my diet harder to maintain, but I did pretty well in the meat, cheese, and vegetable departments, and they have excellent olives. All the extra walking let me get away with eating a little bread here and there, too, which was fantastic.

The Pontevedra albergue had old-school wifi with a password, so I was able to get online that evening and make a reservation for our next stop in Caldas de Reis at a private albergue, which was important because there isn’t a municipal one in that town.

Day 5 - Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis


Sleeping was hot in the albergue that night. It was like an oven, and I ended up shirtless baking on top of my sleeping bag. Blood sugar also took a dive in the middle of the night, so I was up munching a fig bar at 2am. I learned that even though I had reduced my insulin dose, it was important to make sure I carbed up a little before bed after walking all day.


We got on the trail about 7:00 am and crossed the bridge in Pontevedra before sunup.



The walk between Pontevedra and Caldas de Reis was pretty flat and unremarkable for the most part. We did go through a number of vineyards, in many cases with bunches of grapes hanging down over the trail. They were ripe, and I did taste-test one just because I couldn’t resist…it was fantastic.

We found a little shop that was selling Tortilla, which is basically a Spanish breakfast omelet with egg, cheese, and potatoes. I just had a few bites because of the potatoes, but it was fantastic. We found another place with more for lunch.

About halfway into the hike there was a national park with a waterfall that was less than a km off the trail. The trail was super busy by this point…hundreds of people working their way north. But when we got off of it and went over to the park, there was nobody there. The waterfall was beautiful, and you could climb out on the rocks and soak your feet in the pools, which we did. We were eventually joined by three other pilgrims, two of whom, a Spanish dad and son duo, we repeatedly crossed paths with the rest of the way to Santiago.





Once we got to Caldas we checked into our albergue. This was our first non-municipal, and it was a little fancier. The beds had privacy curtains and were separated out into smaller groups unlike the wide open room full of bunks that we’d become accustomed to. They still had a kitchen and common area, bathroom and laundry as well. It was nice, but more expensive and people seemed more inclined to keep to themselves.

After getting checked in we walked the town. It had a neat old Roman bridge, a church, and a river full of trout. Made me wish I had a rod. Apparently people do fish there, because there were a lot of signs saying catch and release only. There was also an old “lavadora” or laundry basin in town that was fed by a thermal hot spring. We hit that up and soaked our feet for a bit along with a bunch of other pilgrims.









Supper in Caldas de Reis was epic. We went to a little pizza place by the old Roman bridge and my wife ended up translating for three different groups of people who were trying to order. My wife and son got a pizza, and I ordered what I thought was going to be a small serving of chicken parmesan with a salad. The Pizza was amazing, but the chicken was incredible. I got basically an aluminum bowl full of french fries with three big pieces of breaded chicken absolutely smothered in cheese. The serving probably weighed 2lbs. The chicken was breaded so I shouldn’t have eaten that much, but the seasoning was some of the best I’ve ever had and I couldn’t help myself. I was very full by the end, even though my son ate the fries. I did not have low blood sugar issues that night…

Day 6 - Caldas de Reis to Padron

We got up about 6:00 and hit up a bakery on the way out of town so my wife and son could get giant donuts. I settled for a piece of the “bag-ette”...a daily piece of bread that we’d buy and tuck into the water bottle pouch of one of our packs so we could break off and eat pieces on the trail.

The first hour or so we were in the dark and were walking to the light of my little Streamlight Macrostream. TSA might have prevented me from bringing a gun or a knife, but I got good use of that little EDC light on the trip.



The walk itself was pretty unremarkable, and only about 11 miles. We got into Padron about 10:45, and the municipal albergue wasn’t supposed to open until 1:00, but the nice lady there saw us sitting outside and opened up a little bit after 11:00. The albergue is another tastefully renovated old building, and has a nice kitchen area and also an outdoor laundry area where I got some stuff cleaned up and hung out to dry in the heat of the day.





Thankfully we all got bottom bunks at this one, because the top ones were awkwardly close together with nothing in between.



We got our beds made then as per our usual, went out on the town. There’s a convent and an old church where according to legend St. Jame’s bones were brought ashore for transport to Santiago.



We took the day pretty easy. Walked around town a bit, hit the grocery store for lunch, then went back to the albergue for a nap. In the evening we found a doner kebab place in a side alley for dinner, then got to bed early for the long hike into Santiago the next day.

This is quite a tour. Thank you for sharing!

No Pastel de Natas in Porto? If so you've done yourself a dis-service, sir.

How much did it rain on yall? We walked about the same time of year as yall did in 2022 and I think we got rained on about 20% of the time.

Do you know about the Kumano Kodō?

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
No Pastel de Natas in Porto? If so you've done yourself a dis-service, sir.

How much did it rain on yall? We walked about the same time of year as yall did in 2022 and I think we got rained on about 20% of the time.

Do you know about the Kumano Kodō?

Lol...we didn't really get to spend any time in Porto until the end of the trip, but I haven't gotten to that part of the story yet! My wife and kid did get some of those along the way, though. It was absolutely a tour of fresh pastries of all varieties every morning from local bakeries. Unfortunately, my diet prevents me from partaking in that sort of thing. If I ate that I wouldn't be able to eat anything else all day (carb count) and I'd feel like crap.

We had pretty excellent weather the whole trip. The only day we had rain was between Santiago an Negreira, and that was mostly just a steady drizzle that increased to "light rain" every now and then. We got wet, but we covered our packs and they stayed dry. There was a tiny bit of spitting rain the last day between Fisterra and Muxia, too, but not even enough to warrant covering up.

I looked up the Kumano Kodo. That looks fun, and I've never been to Japan. A guy I met in Spain turned me on to the St. Olafsen's Trail in Norway, too, but that looks like it would be a lot more expensive. If I ever had the vacation time to burn I could see myself going back and doing the whole French way, or even the Northern route from start to finish.

Day 7 - Padron to Santiago de Compostela

This was a longer day, about 25km, and mostly uphill. The first half of the day was pretty nice rural walking, but as we got closer it became more industrial and urban. It was also really busy. The closer we got to the city, the busier it got, and the city itself was a zoo because all of the routes converge there.



I knew we were going to have trouble finding an inexpensive place to stay in the city. The municipal albergue was on the far east side of town where the French routes chase in, and we were coming in from the south and leaving out of the east towards Fisterra the next morning. I got online in Caldas and made reservations at a place about 7km south of the city called O Milladoiro. We stopped there on the way into Santiago hoping to drop our bags, but they weren’t ready yet so we just carried them the whole way into the Cathedral.



It was a nice sense of accomplishment to come into the city and make it to the square in front of the cathedral. Watching other pilgrims, some of whom had been walking for weeks, arrive was also really cool. The cathedral itself was kind of underwhelming. The exterior had a lot of newer additions so the architecture lacked some of the ancient impressiveness of other Cathedrals I’ve been to in other parts of Europe. The interior was typically gaudy, and the whole feel of the experience with the crowds, lines, security, and regulations was very rigid and unwelcoming. They don’t even let you take bags into the building, so the thousands of pilgrims either have to pay to store them somewhere or take turns watching them outside, which is what we did.


The one thing I did think was cool was the way the pipes from the organ flew out horizontally over the sanctuary.



The process to get your compostella document was pretty well organized. We went to the pilgrim’s information center about a block away from the cathedral and were directed to a kiosk where we entered our info. I thought there might be an issue since we didn’t actually have any stamps from Vigo in our passports because we hadn’t gotten them until Redondella (I had saved the receipts from the Vigo albergue just in case), but they didn’t seem to care. It took less time to get our certificates and stamps than it did to enter the info.

We walked around the city for a bit but quickly got tired of the crowds, congestion, and crazy prices on everything, so we went to the bus stop to catch a bus back to O Millidoiro. Spanish bus stops are an experience in themself. There’s no posted schedule, no route info or list, and it’s basically just a free-for-all. Thankfully we met a nice lady who helped us out and got us on the right bus after a 45 minute wait.

We got to the place we’d reserved and checked in. It was basically just a regular apartment in a residential apartment block, but each of the three rooms had been converted to bedrooms and had an individual lock. The kitchen and bathroom were shared. So we got our own room and two other groups of pilgrims had the others. We hit up the local grocery store for supper and cooked it in the kitchen. Utensils were limited, but I can do amazing things with a fork.

Day 8 - Santiago de Compostela to Negreira


We got up in the morning and caught the bus back to Santiago and walked to the cathedral. It was misting a good bit bordering on rain, and that early in the morning there were very few people around. It was kinda cool to be able to reflect more quietly without all the crowds of the day before.



A few blocks from the square we found the first marker for the Fisterra/Muxia route. It was kinda like starting over again, which was great because I wasn’t ready to be done.



The path quickly turned more rural as we climbed up out of the city. We got a bit of a view back at the cathedral at one point, which was kinda cool.



It rained all morning, but not too hard and the walking was rural and pleasant. About 4 hours in we came to Ponte Macera, which has a really cool old bridge, a dam, and some old mill houses. It’s kinda cool how they did the mills…instead of using a water wheel on a horizontal shaft like I’m used to seeing around here, they ducted the water through a channel under the building and used a turbine on a vertical shaft to turn the grindstone.







The town of Negreira was decent sized, but being Saturday, not much was open. It’s a big cattle production area of the country, and the statuary reflected that. There’s also an old medieval fort that we had to walk through to get to the albergue on the south side of town.





After checking into the albergue, we went back into town, found a grocery store, and got some food for dinner. It was still dreary and rainy, so we spent the evening relaxing and playing cards in the common area of the albergue. This was kinda cool because it was a whole new group of people. Many had finished the French or northern routes and were continuing on to the sea. There were also fewer people. A couple of them joined us for cards and we really got to start experiencing some of the camaraderie of the camino that we hadn’t really seen up until that point. There was a girl from England, a guy from Japan, and a group of guys from Portugal…it was cool to just sit around, eat, and talk and hear about everybody’s trip and plans going forward.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 92fstech,

Very cool, one of these days once I'm retired I'll probably do another Camino. A longer one. We didn't do the walk to the sea. I want to do that next time once I'm not on a time crunch.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
Very cool, one of these days once I'm retired I'll probably do another Camino. A longer one. We didn't do the walk to the sea. I want to do that next time once I'm not on a time crunch.

The Finisterre/Muxia route was my favorite part of the trip by far. I highly recommend it. It's was less busy, the scenery was better, and the comraderie between the pilgrims was stronger. And yeah...time off from work is definitely the biggest barrier to doing something like this as an American. Europeans get a lot more vacation time than us. I'd just about have to take a leave of absence or wait for retirement to do any of the longer routes in their entirety.

I'm pretty sure you told me a few months ago, but I don't remember...which section of the route did you do on your trip?

Day 9 - Negreira to Oliveiroa

There was quite a bit of apprehension going into this leg. This was the longest walking day of the trip, about 20 miles, with pretty much nothing between the two towns. Thankfully the rain had stopped and it turned out to be a really nice day. We got up early and started out before sunup. There was a lot of elevation gain, and one really significant spike on the topo map about ¾ of the way through the day that I really wasn’t looking forward to.

Ultimately, it turned out to be a really nice, albeit tiring walk through the Spanish countryside.The one downside was lots and lots of cow shit. It’s the time of the year that they’re fertilizing the fields, and they’re pretty organic in their approach.






The scary spike on the topo map ended up being a relatively short but steep climb up a hill with a nice view of a reservoir.



We got into Oliveiroa about 2pm. It’s a tiny little farming village with a couple of albergues, a lot of stone granaries, and not much else. The municipal albergue is a series of restored stone farm buildings, with the registration and kitchen area in one, and the dormitories and laundry area spread across a couple of others. Unlike the relatively rigid structure of the other ones we’d been at, there was a sign at this one telling us that the registration guy would be back after 7pm and to go ahead and pick a bed.



We did that, did a little laundry in the sink, and rested up for a bit before making our way down to the cafe at one of the other albergues and buying some chicken sandwiches for lunch. We walked the town, which only took about 10 minutes, and then went back to the albergue to wait for the registration guy to come back.



People trickled in throughout the rest of the afternoon, cooked some food to share in the kitchen, and pretty much just hung out as a group. When the registration guy finally got there we all settled up and then just hung out in the registration building until bed time. There was a lady from Alaska, a guy from the Netherlands, our card-playing English friend and the Japanese guy from the night before in Negreria, and another girl from Germany, as well as the group of Portuguese guys. It wasn’t a very exciting day from a sightseeing perspective, but it was probably my favorite albergue experience of the trip.

Day 10 - Oliveiroa to Cee

This was a pretty average walking day…about 13 miles. Pretty early on we reached the split point where you have to choose between going to either Fisterra or Muxia. We took a left.



As we got closer to the ocean the landscape changed from farmland more towards sub-alpine forest. A few kilometers after the split we encountered Vakner…a mythical werewolf thing that supposedly inhabits the hills in that area. My son thought it was pretty awesome.



Another thing we encountered was a little church out in the country. This was not unusual at all as we’d passed tons of these along the entire way, but this one was different in that there was actually somebody there. A really nice lady met us out by the road, welcomed us into the church, stamped our passports, and directed us to some fresh water at a fountain on the grounds. She even told us about a mass that happened daily at another church in Fisterra. I had started to think that the Catholic Church was really missing the boat on having an impact on all of the people walking their route, but this lady was really on it. I think she was the only one I saw doing that on the entire trip, but she was great.

Shortly after the church we started a steep downhill for a few kms into the town of Cee. We got our first glimpses of the point and the lighthouse at Fisterra on the way.



Cee is a pretty big town, with grocery stores and restaurants. We ate some lunch at a little cafe, and hit up the grocery store for dinner stuff. Then we went to the beach in the middle of town and waded around for a while and relaxed while we waited for our apartment to be ready for checkin.

Cee does not have a municipal albergue, and a lot of people just hike through to Fisterra, but we had the time and figured it would be nice to not do three 30km days in a row. I found a little rental apartment for just a little more than it was costing the three of us to stay in the albergues, and it ended up being really awesome. It was a tiny studio apartment with a bathroom and kitchen and a fold-out couch in front of the stove for my son. We made some dinner, went down to the water after supper for some tidepooling, and got a good night’s sleep in our own cozy little apartment.

quote:

which section of the route did you do on your trip?

I did the Coastal route out of Porto and then went up river at Caminha to Valenca and then continued on the Central route from there.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:

quote:

which section of the route did you do on your trip?

I did the Coastal route out of Porto and then went up river at Caminha to Valenca and then continued on the Central route from there.

How long did that take?

11 days of walking and a rest day. Looking back, we pushed ourselves way to hard. We were doing 15+ miles a day most days. My next Camino will be more like yours. Walk till noon or so and then take some time to see the town.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
11 days of walking and a rest day. Looking back, we pushed ourselves way to hard. We were doing 15+ miles a day most days. My next Camino will be more like yours. Walk till noon or so and then take some time to see the town.

Yeah, that's pretty aggressive. We had a couple of days like that, but not too many. I'd have done the exact same thing if I hadn't had my wife and son along...and probably regretted it later. Thankfully my wife convinced me to take it easier. I'm very goal-oriented and like to put miles behind me when I hike, but this trip wasn't really about that.

On the other hand, your schedule did allow you to complete an entire route within the timeframe of a typical two-week vacation. Sometimes you've just gotta do what you've gotta do to work within the parameters that you're handed. I'd have loved to have spent more time, but I only had that much available.

Day 11 - Cee to Fisterra

This was a short day of only about 14km, so we took out time getting around and got going as the sun was coming up. We went through Cee around the bay, and then up through the neighboring town of Corcubion.



We went up and over a couple of hills that provided a view of Fisterra in the distance, but it was still a ways off.



Before we got there we had to go through a couple of little towns that each had their own little beach area. They were really nice and quiet, and IMO would be a great place to come spend a weeklong beach vacation.





We finally came out onto a beach about a mile long that led to Fisterra. We had the option to walk the road, but we kicked off our shoes and walked the beach instead. There were a ton of shells and stuff to look through as we walked, and the water was nice on the feet.



The town was pretty busy, and the bus stop outside the albergue was packed. At first we thought that was the line to get into the albergue, but it turned out they were just waiting for the bus. We got there about 11:40, and were pleasantly surprised to see that it opened at noon instead of 1pm like all of the other ones we’d stayed at. We got checked in and claimed our beds, but the host explained to us that they locked the common area and the kitchen at 7pm and after that you could only get into the dorm space. Which meant no eating dinner there, or stashing breakfast in the fridge as had become our custom. There is a Fisterra completion certificate kind of like the compostella, which the registration guy filled out for us when he checked us in.

We left our packs and went into town and found an affordable doner kebab place for lunch. Then we walked around town a bit and saw this guy playing with his Doberman on the beach. The dog was having a blast digging in the sand after clams, barking and jumping up and down. It cracked me up.



We cut across the inlet to a beach on the Atlantic side and did a little surf-walking and tidepooling. Swimming was prohibited because apparently a lot of people have died.



Then we hiked the road down towards the point and the lighthouse. This was a congested area…a lot of tourists in busses, cars, and camper vans, not just pilgrims.



We found the zero km marker and had to wait in line for a picture…the place was kind of a zoo.



We sat on the rocks for a bit and watched the ocean, and then started back, but up over the “mountain” this time. There was nobody else up there…apparently bus and camper people aren’t down for a climb or a walk. And the views were great.





There are some famous rocks on top of the hill at Fisterra. There are two huge ones that you can stand on and push and actually feel them move. I believe there’s some mythical significance, but I don’t remember what that was. There’s also a “fertility rock” in the ruins of an old monastery where the guidebook said people go have sex to try and make a baby. We couldn’t find that one, which was just as well...that’s gross and I don’t need any more kids.





We ate dinner at the kebab place again (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!) and then walked the beach and harbor area until dark. The town was loud and boisterous until pretty late, and it was hard to get good sleep with all the noise coming in the windows. Overall, it was pretty but an absolute tourist trap and I wasn’t sad to leave it behind for Muxia in the morning.