Day 16 - Seville to Cordoba - 31 May

Driving from Seville to Cordoba.

The temperatures are rising and it is predicted to be 33* today.

10 km today.

Dinner at Taberna La Alqueria, Cordoba about twenty metres from our front door.

Day 15 - Ronda - 30 May

Off on a road trip to Ronda today.

Beautiful weather. Today is a public holiday in Seville and by all the police roadblocks we saw on the way out of town it looks like there will be a parade or festival.

The Nova bridge at Ronda.  Construction began in 1751 and it was completed in 1793 - 42 years! And I thought we were slow builders. Ronda was great and we found a quiet little plaza on the way to the walk down to get the much better view of the bridge and waterfall from below in the Tajo Gorge.

 Tajo gorge

Lunch was wonderful tapas for most of us at Las Maravillas.

We stopped at a Moorish castle on the way back to Seville and took photos in one of the fields of acres and acres of sunflowers.  There were a few fields of Canola and Wheat but by far the majority were sunflowers.

Sunflowers:

Dinner over in the Santa Cruz near the Cathedral again.  This time at Mama's Bistro.
Very special meal of 13 hour spit roasted suckling pig.

10 km today.

Day 14 - Seville - 29 May

We had breakfast close to our hotel then set out on a guided walk around Seville.
We didn't get very far before we all rushed to purchase umbrellas - except Celia who had cleverly brought hers with her. Unfortunately her shoes let her down in the rain and she retreated to the hotel as her ankle was still playing up.

We viewed the Cathedral of St Mary, Seville. An amazing, huge cathedral, complete with ancient graffiti on the walls, preserved because it was done in bull's blood. The cathedral was built on an ancient Moorish Mosque so combines the two types of architecture.

Puerta de Jerez. One of the gates to old city when it was surrounded by walls.

Giralda.. The bell tower of the Seville Cathedral.

This was originally a school for boys who wanted to be priests but is now a residential and shopping complex.  

Ayuntamiento of Seville - the City Hall:

Plaza de Toros. A temporary wooden bullfighting ring was erected in this location in 1730 but in 1761 it was decided to build a new round structure.  It was completed in 1881 and holds 12,500 spectators.  Bullfighting is still allowed in Seville and this is bullfighting season. Three weeks ago there was a bullfight every night for a week at this venue.  They are bullfights once a week around Spain.

This is a famous bullfighter Francisco Romero Lopez who was a torero dor from 1950 - 1990.  

Torre del Oro (tower of gold) built in 1220 as part of the defensive walls of the city.

Parque Mari Luisa was designed from 1911-1914.

We did some washing, had afternoon tea at the hotel and met everyone for dinner at Patanchon Bar near the Cathedral . Excellent food, different from what we usually have in Spain. Great because you could have tapas served of main plates so easily enjoy a variety of great dishes.

14.5 km today.

Day 13 - Seville - 28 May

Taxi to the airport then flight to Seville.
Taxi to hotel to drop our bags then Cressida led us through the back streets of Seville.
We viewed Iglesia de San Pedro, just near our hotel:

Plaza Jesus de la Redencion:

5 star hotel Palacio de Villapanes:

Fountains as a roundabout:

Plaza de Espana: built in 1928 for the Iberio-American Exposition of 1929. It is an example of the Regionalism Architecture, mixing elements of Renaissance and Moorish Architecture.

It leads onto the Parque Maria Luisa where there are beautiful avenues of plane trees and magnolia trees.  There are many fountains and ponds and horse drawn carriages for the tourists abound.

We had dinner at El Rinconcillo which opened at 8pm and was very close to our hotel.

7 km today.

Day 12 - Santiago de Compostela - 27 May

Woke up bright and early to get to the Compostela Office  when it opened at 8am only to find the queue was already over an hour long.  Waited patiently in line and was rewarded by a Compostela and a distance certificate.
Wandered around town where we found an impromptu orchestra playing in a square.

 Looked at shops, posted letters, had lunch and drinks before dinner.

8.8.km today.

Day 11 - Pedrouzo to Santiago - 26 May

We started at 6am in the dark to avoid the rain but it had already started. Rain, thunderstorms and fog punctuated the day. We stopped for breakfast just before a downpour which was fortunate. I had rain pants (that didn't make that horrible swipe sound at every step) and an excellent raincoat and rain cover for my pack. Celia had a good raincoat and fairly waterproof pants but her pack got wet. Cressida and Shayne had ponchos Taft worked well with their peaked hats. Margins raincoat turned out no to be rainproof at all and after shivering through many miles found a cafe selling ponchos and was then warm. Ron and Michael got soaking wet shorts. All of us, regardless of "waterproof" shoes or not ended the walk in varying degrees of saturated feet. I am very thankful it is our last day as my feet turned to prunes by the end of the day. It's a measure of the tiny moments of spirituality of even the short section of the walk we completed that when one pilgrim told Margot the "the rain washed our soul" that we didn't roll our eyes but accepted the blessing of the comment. 

We reconnected with Alf and Patrick who had their own exciting trip getting from Madrid to SdC. 

We went to the 7:30 mass which was in Spanish with a few blessings in English but the structure of the service was exactly the same. The botufumero swung and it was a very memorable and moving part of the service. The 15 person choir was lovely and the sung another song after the service which added to the celebratory feel of the service.

We all celebrated the end of the walk with dinner at O Botrco tapas bar.  It's easy to identify the pilgrims around town as we all hobble!

27.0 km today.

Day 10 - Arzua to Pedruzo - 25 May

It was hot, hot, hot yesterday and the same is predicted today so we are setting out early at 6am to avoid the heat.

Rain came just as we were walking into Pedrouzo for lunch.

Barlino for breakfast. For ice deals and beer. Che Cafe, Pedrouzo for lunch. Regueiro for
Dinner.

23.1 km today.

Day 9 - Melida to Arzua- 24 May

So far Michael and I are the only ones who have survived without blisters but I haven't started walking yet today and my shins and calves are suffering so I don't feel like a winner.

Beautiful shaded tracks today. Uphill and down dale is not sufficiently daunting to describe today's track.

Thankfully there are a lot of cafes along the way to enjoy an aqua con gas or ice cream.
We had morning tea at Parada Taberna in Cassanova - we would not recommend it.  The owner was having a running dispute with the neighbouring cafe and was very rude when one of us bought espresso coffee (which he didn't sell) in the other cafe.

One of the great things about the Camino so far has been the warm welcome we have received no matter if you just sit and rest without a drink.  Some bar owners like you to buy something to use the rest rooms but that is understandable.

It was 32* this afternoon when we were having our lunch/dinner at 4pm.

Finally think I've worked out how to upload photos (have to put them into google photos first because google wants to ensure its monopoly!) but it is nowhere near as seemless as when i could upload from the phone so it will take a while to update previous days. I think i will have to find a new blog host for next time. 😞

19.0 km today

Day 8 - Palas de Rei to Melida - 23 May

Tiny short day today of about 14 km! The weather forecast is for 29*. We had breakfast at 7am and set out on the walk at 8:45.

We had a very relaxing walk through lovely tree lined groves that provided shade - too much in the morning but we were grateful for them a little later on.  We saw another horse riding pilgrim and a few bicigrinos (people doing the Camino on push bikes).

Cressida knew the best part of Melida is the old town so we found it - about 100m from where we were staying (excellent planning). We had lunch/dinner at O Recuncho do convento a very nice newly renovated bar with wonderful food but they will not give you ice in drinks.
We don't know why.

19.3 km today.

Day 7 - Portomarin to Palais de Rei - 22 May

Portomarin to Palas de Rei.
I think we had a little rain overnight but like anyone who had just walked 26km I was dead to the world.  This could have been due to a little chemical assistance from some Spanish vino Blanc (no particular variety listed on the bottle).  After yesterday's last 5 km heartbreak hill (down and the up a river valley) we were all a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to get out of bed today let alone walk 26km to Palas de Rei.

The weather forecast is perfect for the beach at 27* but not so perfect for plodding along under the sun. The weather bureau advertised 21* max at this time for the last few months but didn't deliver.
Breakfast at O'Mirador, Portomarin. Today's walk was uphill half the day and downhill the other half of the day.

Ron and I made a little detour that the others missed to Castro de Castromaior, an archaelogical site of a settlement occupied between 2nd century BC and 1st century BC.  

Beautiful shaded pathways:

Well deserved lunch break:

Ronnie coming out of the tiny chapel where a blind man stamps, with some directional assistance, your compostela:

Stopped at Meson A Brea for afternoon tea. Lots of stops enabled us to do 29 km. Breaks are good but sometimes at the end of a break when you have to get going again you sort of regret stopping!

This evening we discovered that only Michael and I have blister free feet. Everyone else has succumbed to the dreaded disability.  I haven't got off scott free, thought, because I have a broken toe - self inflicted on a chair leg 8 weeks ago - that is still painful but not effecting my walking much so far. 

Ronnie's feet were fine until this evening when he found a blister in top of his little toe! How weird is that!

3 course dinner for 9 euro including half a bottle of wine was pretty good but not up to the usual estupendo Spanish standards. 

28.5 km today.

Day 6 - Sarria to Portomarin - 21 May

Day one of the Camino.

Sunny with some cloud is the forecast - when the fog lifts we will know if it is right. 8* at 7am when we set out. Thunderstorms predicting 3mm of rain didn't eventuate but we did have 5 small drops of rain.  This is the start at Sarria:

It isn't all flat!

                          Cressida, Shayne, Ron, Celia, Michael and me.

                                               Only 113 km to go!

                                              Cressida and Celia:

Arrived in Portomarin after a huge downhill section then over the river and a huge uphill section to the town to be met by more uphill to Albergue Aqua where we checked in, did some washing. Then we made our way down into town and had dinner,  it was a set menu of 5 choices of entree (huge mixed salad)  and 8 choices for main (grilled salmon) and 4 choices of dessert (Santiago pie-GF almond cake) plus 1/2 bottle of wine for 9.50 Euro!

We staggered back up the hill to bed relatively early at 10pm.
The internet in Spain (in the places we stay) doesn't seem to support photo uploads!

27.2 km today.