Apr 16th, 2019

Author: donich_admin

Palas de Rei

After finally managing to kick J into action this morning we set off amongst a huge crowd of pilgrims. I’ve noticed that the demographic seems definitely to have shifted to young Spanish people away from the very international and distinctly middle aged people we met early on. Presumably this is because the final stage is only five days and it is therefore much easier for people in employment.

The countryside was green and pretty but not particularly spectacular. J said it reminded him of Thetford in Norfolk if it had been a bit flatter.

Mid-morning we found a spectacular excavation of a Roman camp.

We decided to take it a bit easier today as we have been arriving in small towns with nothing to do at 3pm so we stopped a couple of times this afternoon for a beer and a relax. One place was great – they advertised “Free coffee, tea, water and hugs”. They asked us where we were from and we added two pins to a map – one for Glasgow, and one for our Heilan’ home.

Mid-afternoon we met two nice cats. Their owner told me in Spanish that they were Mum and Daughter. As the tabby was obviously just a big kitten, and Mum was a Siemese, she had obviously been playing with a bit of rough trade.

We got into Palas de Rei around 17:00 – not much to do here and the hotel is a bit of a dump, but we had a nice meal and plan to set off early tomorrow for Arzua – quite a long stage at 28km. But only 68km to Santiago now.

The picture at the top is J just outside the town.