Ina with family from Mondonedo to Santiago

Sleep late! No pressure to get up early and breakfast available until 11 am! A private guided tour organised by Serge was booked for 11:30h which everybody was “condemned” to attend.  I got up at 8:30h, and was at breakfast at 9:30h. Nobody to be seen! I had been told that Franzisca was going to do a bit of jogging with Leo. Anyway at 10h first Andrea and Serge showed up with Nico and then in quick succession all the others showed up as well. And the waiter had great difficulties checking who they all were and which room they had come from - he seemed quite worried about these young giants in their walking outfits - as if Andrea had picked them up on the street and invited them in for a free breakfast... The guided tour provided a lot of details which was interesting for the adults, less so for the younger ones of the youngsters. Late lunch was booked for 3 pm, and Nicola’s and Franzisca’s taxi for 3:30 pm - so there was just enough time for the youngsters to hop into the swimming ...

Easy walk punctuated by stops at bars. On our first day we had  walked only 16 km and found it quite fatiguing. Having had a week’s practice this was a piece of cake. After a quarter of an hour through eucalyptus forest we joined the Camino Francés and were staggered - the number of people streaming past! To which we added our number of course. A bar crawl, as I said with, at times, quite heavy showers - but finished off in beautiful sunshine by the time we got into the historical town center where we are being put up by Andrea and Serge in a 4* hotel almost next to the cathedral, the San Francisco Hotel Monumento. While everybody installed themselves Andrea and I went to the Peregrinos’ Office to get our Compostella, the pilgrims certificate certifying that you walked a minimum of 100 km on one of the St James’ pilgrim routes and the certificate of the distance you actually walked. Having walked as a group you have one person registering all the members of the group - thus you avo...

Today was very long and not particularly interesting. The landscape ondulating and green meadows and forests alternating, pleasant to look at, but instead of paths we walked on roads practically all day. At one point we lost our planned path and ended up on another one of the many alternatives which have been developped in recent years to avoid the crowds on some of the traditional caminos. We had followed the official markers religiously and cannot imagine where we switched over. However switch over we did and finally realized that if we continued following those markers we would end up in Santiago directly and not at all were we had made our reservations. So we changed direction and made it. Anyway this added only one kilometer or so to our walk. Our hotel/pension has quite a large swimming pool which the children love of course. I only had my shower and installed myself in the bar with a beer to write this - too late for a snooze! Dinner is being served now, so I am off. My hands-fr...

Too tired to write much. Weather mixed sun and clouds. A lot of walking on roads. Otherwise the usual variety of paths or tracks. Very enjoyable the conversations which happen because we are walking for a long time next to each other in varying combinations.  Stopped in Sobrado which was very much changed from when I had been 12 years ago. Then it looked rather abandoned, especially the church which hat a lot of vegetation growing out of every joint of its facade, whole trees in some places. Now it is completely cleaned. Don’t know about the inside. Not open to visitors unless you take a guided tour which we did not have the time to do. Arrived in A Gandara quite late. Acommodation up-market again in a private albergue which also has private rooms - the poor boys in an albergue type room with no private bathroom, whereas the rest of us are in double rooms with en suite bathrooms. And I have such a double room all to myself!!! So off to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long haul to Pedrouz...

Last night since we were in a service station somewhat beyond the town of Baamonde we had our meal in their restaurant, nothing very special, but quite eatable. But of course quite late for us. The restaurants generally do not open before 8:30 pm which is why nowadays I write my contributions to this blog before dinner - the first days I dropped off to sleep while writing! After a light breakfast we got off at 8:30 h. A longish haul along the route nacional before we turned off on to a path into the woods and across an old bridge which I remembered from 12 years ago. Past the Capilla de Santo Alberte and the ruins of a very old house to where we split into two groups: with Clara, Max, Paulo, Nico and I followed at first the traditional camino which is beginning to get quite crowded, and then a recently established alternative to Parga whereas Andrea with Serge, James, Nicola and Leo went to follow the 'rota del agua' along the river Parga to the town Parga - a slightly longer w...

Up extra early - the only slot available before 10 o’clock was 7:30 ! Since there was another group at the same time I suspect they wanted to get rid of the groups by the time normal mortals showed up in the elegant restaurant. A very good buffet to choose from as you would expect in a parador hotel. And off into a reasonably fresh and slightly foggy morning with the sun coming out soon and heating up. However quite bearable. This was a particularly beautiful stage through forests and meadows with a lot of shade. Mostly tracks or paths, very little road. Again two bar stops and several more. Arrived at 3:30 pm and straight to sleep! 15 minutes only unlike yesterday’s 2 hours - am I picking up the stride? Yes, but we are also learning to allow plenty of pauses for me. So now, having washed my clothes and showered myself (and written this) I will join the others who are playing games somewhere in this establishment - a service station on a route nacional - what a come-down from a parador...