Day 5 - Paraños to A Gandara (Boimorto) 20 km


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 Pedrouzo with no bar at all along the way and Santiago the following day!




Bar in Sobrado

Why a candle 5? Andrea had explained to the waiter that we were celebrating my 80th birthday from two years ago. So he brought me a lovely piece of cake and the only birthday candle he could find in the establishment.


Sobrado


Sobrado



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 7 - Pedrouzo to Santiago !!! 16.2km

Image
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...
Read more

Day 4 - Baamonde to Paraños 24 and 25 km

Image
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...
Read more