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.

Day 5 - Madrid to Sarria - 20 May

We bought an Orange Spanish sim but they were affected by the internet sabotage the next day so the others got vodaphone sims. They got the better deal I think.

As usual there are a few technological glitches and I can't upload photos to the blog! 😳 Hopefully I'll sort it out soon.

Caught taxis to the Chamartin Station to catch the train to Sarria for the start of our walk.
The result of Cressida' pure optimism of not packing a raincoat has resulted in the weather bureau changing their tune to beautiful weather every day of our walk!

The train started as a VFT doing 246 kph but slowed in the mountains. Lovely countryside, pine plantations and stone houses out in the country. In the towns there were apartment after apartment blocks all about 6 storeys high. Hundreds of them. It was a very different look to our smaller cities.
Arrived at Sarria after a 6 hour trip at 7pm.

The host of our gorgeous 6 bedroom apartment convinced us to go to his favourite restaurant and phoned to book us in. We arrived at Roma restaurant and saw the Michelin labels in the window and were alerted to the fact that it wasn't for us as we wanted a quick meal before an early night. We checked the menus (20 euro per course not 20 euro per head including wine that our host had assured us it was)! We apologised and high tailed it out of there and fornd Caferteria Polo where we had pizza and pasta and free flowing beer for 5 euro a head excluding beer and wine.

We start the walk tomorrow and are all a bit nervous, excited and on edge. Going to meditate tonight!

6.7 km today.

Day 4 - Madrid - 19 May

Walked to Plaza de Espana a beautiful park with two fountains and a pond.

Then Jardines de Sabatini

on the way to Palacio Real de Madrid - the Royal Palace  12th Century Moorish Castle. 

The boys getting ready to take a photo:

All that effort was worth it:

                             Panorama of the rear of the Royal Palace:

We toured the cathedral de Almudena. Construction started in 1879 on the site of a mosque which was destroyed in 1083. Construction was abandoned during the Spanish war and recommended in 1950. It was completed in 1993 when it was consecrated by Pope John II.

 The ceilings are painted in a moorish style with bright colours. Some of the stained glass windows are very modern. It's a lovely cathedral and the tour to the museum and top of the dome was worthwhile.

The crew out the front of the cathedral:

Lunch at Magerit in Plaza Major entertained by Spider-Man helping tourists get that special photo.

Drinks and dinner at El Ingles top floor bar and restaurant experience. Fantastic pizza, Japanese, Mexican and hamburguesa!

                                                   The view:

Gran Via - we stayed just around the corner:

10.6 km today.

Day 3 - Madrid - 18 May

Lovely breakfast at Woohoo suites of cereal, toast, croissants, muffins, coffee, tea and coffee set us up for a day of walking - training for the Camino!

May18 just happened to be a day of free entry to all the art galleries in madrid.  Visited the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum which started out as the best private collection of art in the world. 1000 paintings from the 13th Century up to the 20th Century.  Many beautiful impressionist paintings that I loved one by Munch 1911 "Geese in an Orchard" which shows he can paint happy scenes. 

This is by Kandinski 1922 "Untitled":

Cezanne 1905 "Portrait of a Farmer":

Then we walked to the Prado but there were queues and the free tickets weren't available until later in the evening. So, we went up and visited Inglesia de Los Jeronimos. This turned out to have an interior as beautiful as the exterior.

Then we walked up to the Parque De El Retiro hoping to find a place for lunch on the way. Unfortunately the cafes along the way didn't open until 1pm so we walked through the park. The lake in the park even boasted a row boat hire facility or for the less energetic a ferry boat ride!

We continued through the park and found El Brilliant for bocadillos de calamares and Sangria or beer!  

Then we wended our way through the Reina Sofia Museum which specialises in contemporary art. We saw Picasso's Guernica which was part of wider an exhibition on how he came to paint it.

Then back up through a pretty uninspiring Puerta del Sol. Orange network has been effected by the cyber attack and we can't get sims for a day or so.  So we will rely on wifi at night.

We had drinks in the sun watching the world go by. Lovely.

Set out for dinner at 8:30 - really getting into the Spanish way of life! Cressida found the Taverna Tempranillo and it was an inspired choice on the Casa Baja.  We got the only large table and had a very memorable dinner. The best dish was baby squid barbecued in a sensational oil. The only glitch was when we ordered Loin Galicia Stone Porker. Some of us were expecting special (!) grass fed pork loin.  We got thin slices of beef placed on a cast iron griddle on top of a pizza stone at our table. We thought they must have run out of pork or not understood our order.  We asked the waiter a couple of times and the most comprehensible answer was "oh yes, it is very good!".  It finally dawned on us that the stone and iron griddle was the "stone porker" and "loin" was beef not pork!

Then it was off to the highly recommended 24 hour Chocolateira San Gines established in 1894 for our first chocolate con churros.  Simple but fantastic and very generous. We waddled home!

Walked 18.5 km today - incidental exercise - and we all survived!

S

18.5 km walked today!  Incidental exercise. earch Resul

Day 2 - Madrid - 17 May

Emirates staff are very friendly and efficient, the food was very good and the seats and legroom on the A380 were great. 

Our prebooked private shuttle passed the Real Madrid's home stadium and lots of apartments - spread out and only about 6 levels so not overwhelming in the areas surrounding the freeways into the city. It's very dry with silver birch and plane trees everywhere. 

Spain has a population of 48 million. Madrid, the capital, has 3.6 million people.

We are staying at Woohoo suites a stones throw from the Grand Via in the centre of the old part of town. The entry is unprepossessing but inside the building is a lovely old marbled floored place with an ancient tiny lift. The suites - 6 units within a locked communal area are brand new and excellent. There is also a communal dining room for breakfast. 

Walked to the Plaza Major the ancient, huge town square with restaurants on the ground floor with seating in the square and residential units above dating back to 1617.

Cressida led us to Calle Cava Baja where many tapas bars are stretched along one street.  We had dinner in one that opened early as the majority don't open until 8-10pm. Had wine and beer sitting at a high long bar where we chose from a selection of tapas behind a long window. Very easy way to negotiate the language barrier - point, raise your finger for one and nod yes! 

Then we discovered our first Mecado. Mercado de San Miguel. A huge building where they sell pastries, tapas, sangria, ham and fresh produce. A gorgeous place we'll have to return to. 

Lovely old stone buildings painted dark orange and bright yellow with tiny Juliet balconies are everywhere. Even the newer buildings blend into the old buildings. There were lots of people walking around the wide roads, little traffic and no buildings above about 6 floors in the whole area. Very little sign of street sellers and the waiter at the bar we had our first drink in told a busker to "vamoos". It's a lovely part of the city.

Day 1 - We are off! - 16 May

Bought books, looked at duty free and now relaxing with a drink waiting to board the Emirates plane at Sydney Airport for Dubai and then on to Madrid in 25 hrs.

6728 steps today.