Caminho Português 2024: Days 8-10
Green Galicia
The last 3 days we’ve been continuing on the Roman road towards Pontevedra. The route has been gorgeous, with green woodland tracks, bubbly mountain-fed streams full of trout. We’ve also been up and down some hills, with a super steep descent yesterday into Redondela.
Since Tuí on the Spanish border we have been within 100km of Santiago. This means we’ve been joined by the short-distance pilgrims and the path is getting particularly crowded. 100 km is the minimum distance a pilgrim can walk to earn the certification of having fulfilled the pilgrimage. We’ve also seen some of our acquaintances hurry on ahead in order to make flights home. Rich and I are doing the opposite. We’ll take the spiritual variant route and add an extra day to Santiago.
Twice we’ve encountered bagpipers busking in the woods.
Redondela was a nice town last night. We walked down to the river estuary. It was also the first night staying in a parochial hostel this Camino. We had a Pope watching over us and a massive Santiago rosary on the wall.
Photos from today (memorial day):
