The photo below is from the place I stayed last night. So beautiful. The previous owners did an incredible job of adapting a very old farmhouse into a truly inviting home/B&B. And – they get to look at this, but not be responsible for cows or land since they just have the land the house sits on. The new owners were thrilled about that piece, though wished the cows wouldn’t share their flies quite so generously.
And this is today. I had one of those giddy happy moments here, just me and the mist/rain. Actually, once it started to rain, it didn’t stop for the rest of the day, but at this point, I loved it. The day started with some confusion on my part. I’d been picked up yesterday and the notes from Camino Ways, who organized everything, said they’d take me back down in the morning. But as I got ready to go, 2 other guys were leaving and the owner said – oh yes, just walk out that door over there. What? Well, turns out that the road we came up was the Camino and I hadn’t realized because I’d so enjoyed looking at the view and listening to the girls and their dad talk in German. Hmm, so do I worry that I missed 3.9 miles of the Camino? Not enough to go down and then back up. Plus I walked a ton in Lugo, that covers just the mileage, so off I went on my happy way. The advantage was that since we were 3.9 miles outside of Ferreira, no one else was walking here on the Camino yet and the two guys ahead of me walked much faster. Thus, the quiet.
Then about 15-20 minutes later, I looked up and I was back where I’d started! Good grief. I could not figure out how I got there, but luckily, a taxi was passing and turned me around and said go that way. Mind you, there’s only one taxi for the whole area – nice timing. Well, that made up for 1.5 miles of what I missed.
Did I write about this yet? I was looking back at last year’s Camino notes and I wrote about it there, but this is a hollow way and it’s the same phrase here as in England, where I first learned about it. A road walked for so many years, it’s sunk down from the surrounding land. I’m walking in history’s footsteps of the regular folks and pilgrims.
Do you see them? I couldn’t…
I was SO wet when I got to the hotel. Startled, per usual, to walk into town suddenly. I went to my room, radiators not working yet – nowhere – how am I going to dry anything? Then I heard all around me people in their rooms chatting through the windows onto this central covered space, I looked out and they’d all popped out these hanging racks and were putting their things out. Cool! I took the photo without the guy across from me because he’d already taken everything off at least on top and I didn’t want to take a chance of looking too closely. They were all hilarious chatting. The woman next to me told me we were neighbors now hanging our things out to dry – couldn’t tell you what else she said, this is all I got.
I wrote about the history of these places in Melide last year. But what I was struck by this year was how grim it was in this cathedral. I don’t know how anyone would grow up with a positive or hopeful spiritual life if you were in this space every day. Blood, swords, hearts outside the body with knives stuck in. Every church/cathedral has it’s own character and feeling which is interesting since it’s all the same religion.
This little chapel was my favorite space in this town last year and this year, I was struck by the fact that Mary’s robe looks a lot like the blue blanket Kaziah used to use when she was 5-6 and playing at being Mary with it draped just the same way.
Wonderful Camino fountain. As of today, I’m now on the Camino Frances, repeating what Rick and I did last year. Technically, I’m still on the Camino Primitivo since that was my path of origin. We were so lucky last year – it was a month and a day later in the year and yet we had such good weather. Hoping maybe it won’t rain quite so much tomorrow, but no matter, it’s a short day. Only 13k.
Reb's Walks! 