Author: Wynette Richards

Post by Wynette: We walked a whopping 4.5 miles today. Wanted to stay in Viveiro from having read an article in the Telegraph promoting it to British tourists. They said Viveiro is a good place to use as home base and visit wonderful nearby towns and beaches. We can attest there are many of those. Turns out most of the Viveiro hotels, etc. are out of town, for people with cars. The only place near the center was Viveiro Urban Hotel so we made a reservation. We didn’t realize at the time it was a four star hotel. Cost was 77. We prefer to pay 40 or 50, but didn’t have a lot of choice if we wanted to be in town (i.e., not walk 1 or 2 miles for a meal). It certainly is fun to stay in such a nice hotel. Rooms in VUH in high season are 150. Now that Holy Week is over we are back in low season where we always seem to be the only ones in the hotel. Tomorrow night we plan to be in a much smaller town and have a place reserved for 30 euros.

We checked into VUH about noon, rested a bit, then went to a nearby bar/restaurante for a menú del día. It was great. Photo of menu below. We have been remembering lately to ask for ensalada (salad) instead of the fried potatoes that nearly always come with the menús. They always seem happy to do that. The salads have been simple lettuce, tomatoes, and onions with oil and vinegar, but very fresh good lettuce. Often good tomatoes as well.

Post by Wynette: We weren’t up for walking 15 miles today. (Are you surprised?) But that was the distance to Faro, the next place with a place to stay after San Ciprián. So, hmmm. What to do? Call a taxi! Taxi driver named Angel took us 6.6 miles. Because of taxi we didn’t have to walk through a not-great stretch by the Alcoa Aluminum factory that keeps many in San Ciprián employed, including our young airbnb landlady. Angel only charged us 15. These low prices make me feel guilty.

We started walking at sea level by a little beach and soon we were high above the water. Today had a lot more up and down than we’ve had lately.

We walked a little over 8 miles. At that mileage we are always happy to get to our place for the night. Tonight’s is an especially nice one. We got here around 2 so lots of time to relax and enjoy it.

The drawback here is that the closest place to eat is a mile and a half round trip walk and the hotel owner thought it was closed on Monday anyway. Luckily we have one boiled egg, a little cheese, a little bread, an apple, some muesli, some nuts, and some chocolate. The hotel owner gave us a carton of milk and also served us coffee. So we’re doing just fine without our usual menú del día.

Post by Wynette: We are having a nice rest day in San Ciprián. Slept as late as we wanted. Had breakfast.

Did a load of washing then hung it out to dry.

Walked into town (1 km) and had an excellent menu.

Walked through the town along the beach. It was cool and breezy at that point.

Walked to the beach on the other side of the tiny peninsula.

We had fun looking in the tide pools.

Finally got to the light house.

Then walked back through the old village.

Post by Wynette: We walked 9.8 miles today. We are staying in an airbnb on the edge of San Ciprián. That 9.8 includes walking 1.5 miles into town and back for lunch and grocery shopping. We reserved this airbnb back before we left Albuquerque when we were panicking about finding places to stay for Easter weekend. San Ciprián seemed like a good place to spend Easter so we decided to make the reservation for two days.

We have lots of space. Large kitchen, large living room, 3 bedrooms! Fun to have a house to spread out in and a kitchen to cook in. It’s sunny and charming. Only drawback (besides it being a third floor walk up flat and not in the center) is that there seems to be no heat. I’m currently wrapped up in a blanket on the couch.

Tomorrow we’ll relax and explore the little town. We’ve made reservations for an Easter lunch at one of the restaurants.

Post by Wynette: We didn’t do any ocean walking today. We could see our destination, Foz, just across the estuary, probably one or two miles as the crow flies. But no bridge or ferry or very strong crow to take us there. We had to walk around the estuary to get to Foz, so we put in a nine mile day. (Foz is pronounced foth, long O, rhymes with both.)

We quite enjoyed the walk. Went through a couple of lovely old ramshackle villages, something I’ve missed on this Camino.

After about 4 miles we came to the restaurant where we hoped to have our first coffee and food for the day. We had to walk about 200 yards out of our way down a busy highway to get to it. The restaurant was huge. Served highway travelers. To our relief it was open. There was a big tour bus in the parking lot but we’d seen that once before and weren’t too worried about getting our coffee and eggs. But, the bar where you stood to order was mobbed. I stood there probably 20 minutes and no server even looked at me. Charlie was holding the table at the other side of the restaurant. I finally texted him and said I hadn’t been able to order. We didn’t think we had any other place to eat for miles. Charlie checked Google Maps again and found a bakery/pastry shop/bar another 300 yards up the road. So we ditched the big place and headed to the humble bakery. They were open! Pink (except with blue hair) waited on us. She didn’t seem excited about making fried eggs and toast but she said yes to our request. We had a tranquil breakfast with especially good toast.

Post by Wynette: This morning we passed this man carrying a bucket and a long hook thing. He’d just popped up to the walkway from the rocks along the beach. I couldn’t resist asking what he had in his bucket. He showed us. It was octopus, what they call pulpo in Spain. Anyone who’s done the Camino to Santiago knows that the Galicians love pulpo and there are restaurants everywhere that specialize in it. Charlie and I have tried it a few times but haven’t developed a taste for it. It is very chewy/rubbery.

After we passed the man we looked down and saw another man with a similar pole. Probably fishing for octopi as well.

Post by Wynette: We left earlier than usual this morning. A bit before sunrise. Forecast was for a warmer than usual day and we wanted to avoid the excruciating walk in 68 degree weather.

We walked a little more than 8 miles. The Ruta was more developed today. Much of it paved trails and more houses along the way. But a thoroughly enjoyable walk.

In the last half of the walk we went along a huge sandy beach that went on for miles.

I’ve been enjoying the beautiful ice plant on the headlands. Then we saw a sign that said they are invasive plants and there is effort to eradicate them. That makes it harder to enjoy them but they really are pretty. Kind of like the salt cedar (tamarisk) trees in the US southwest, such as along the Rio Grande and in the Grand Canyon. They are such pretty trees and do so much damage to the native habitat.

Post by Wynette: Today (April 16) we started along the Camino del Mar which mostly follows the Ruta Cantábrica, a system of trails that follow the Atlantic coast in northern Galicia. We walked about 7.5 miles.

The Camino here is poorly marked. We see a yellow camino arrow here and there, but the Ruta has excellent signage so we are following that, and, of course, our GPS tracks. The trail is usually right along the ocean. Today (April 16) much of it went through what we called mini-moors on headlands. We saw heather (I think) and gorse and many other wild flowers. Lots of sun so water was blue. Quite a pretty hike. Most of it was country far from any houses. We did see a number of people out walking and others gathering something from the tide pools (mussels?).

We are staying in the tiny village of Rinlo. We didn’t have a lot of choice for accommodation. Our room is clean and quiet but beds aren’t great and we never did get any hot water for showers. Maybe almost sorta lukewarm. We were feeling a little down about that but it finally dawned on us that this was a clearly a first-world problem.

The hotel does have an excellent restaurant. We had some delicious scallops and then a large steaming hot pot of rice, lobster, prawn, crab, and clams, a dish that is a specialty of the town. We had to wait 30 minutes for them to prepare the dish but it was worth it. The restaurant was large and full and nearly everyone was having the rice dish.

Post by Wynette: We are staying in Ribadeo two nights. One reason is that we wanted to visit the famous Beach of the Cathedrals which is about 10 miles from Ribadeo. We will be walking right by it on Wednesday but you can only walk on the beach itself at low tide and timing was good to go today. So that it doesn’t get too crowded, reservations are required to go on the beach during the summer and during Holy Week. We made reservations before we left. Today was the day. Low tide a little before 8 am. Got up, ate hotel breakfast at 7:30. Taxi picked us up at 8:00. Got to beach around 8:15. Pouring rain. The most rain we’ve had all trip. We were prepared with our trusty rain gear, but, I think the taxi driver felt sorry for us because he asked us if we wanted his umbrella. He said we could leave it at the hotel and he’d pick it up later. We gladly accepted his offer. Another Camino angel. The beach really was beautiful. We walked around a bit and then got a coffee at the beach bar and then caught a bus back to town. (We had to take taxi to the beach because earliest bus was after 9, too late for the low tide.) There are more photos of the beach in slideshow Charlie just published.

Post by Wynette: Spain has 17 autonomous regions. These are much like states in the US. Here’s where I got the above map. On our Camino last year we started in Basque Country, then went through Cantabria, then went about half way through Asturias. This year we just went through the rest of Asturias and are now in Galicia. On our first Camino in 2013 we went through Navarra, La Rioja, huge Castillo y León, and then finished in Galicia where Santiago is located. They all have their own character, slightly different foods, and each is responsible for taking care of their part of the Camino and doing the waymarks.