Author: Charlie

We created a few albums to show aspects of our trip.

Selfies: https://photos.app.goo.gl/wa6DARmVytpbDWQr6

Food and coffee: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qoa9smXNnPnUQu2X8

Bars: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bixqX3DD8mZcE3Fv8

We love the bars/cafes in Spain. They are so varied, interesting, and friendly.

Hotels: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vqmw341GC4YeB4Fr9

• Camino walking: As Seixas to Melide, 9.3 miles in 5:41 hours, moving 3:37
• Elevation: up 761 feet and down 1243, between 2290 and 1368 feet.
• 63 flights of stairs up.
• Last day of April and our last day on the Camino Primitivo. A fairly long day.
• Melide is where the Primitivo merges with the Frances, which is the main one and is, in some sense, THE Camino, that is, the one everyone knows and the most popular one. Most pilgrims merge into the Frances and walk the last 50-odd km to Santiago. We have been to Santiago several times and so tomorrow we take the bus to Vigo to stay for a week.
• Frances Freakout: At a bar stop today we talked with a pilgrim who said the Frances is full. He tried to get a reservation for the night every place between Melide and Santiago and everything was full. He said hundreds of pilgrims were lining up at albergues trying to get a bed for the night. We have been reading on the Camino Forum about the crowds and the “bed race” where people get up at 3-4 in the morning in order to get a bed at the end of their days walk. People walking talk of being in long lines of pilgrims.
• On the other hand we just finished the Primitivo and there were a fair number of pilgrims but not crowds in any sense and we were usually alone on the trail. Many people don’t know how many different Caminos there are.
• Last night we stayed at an albergue in As Seixas, in a small but very nice private room with private bath. There were only two other pilgrims staying there. The woman who runs the place made us a wonderful dinner with the best Gallego soup we have ever had. We ate and chatted with a man from Australia and one from Germany.
• We had another cattle incident today, our third, very low key with cattle who mainly wanted to get out to the field and start munching grass.
• Today was another very pleasant day with a lot of variety. It was kind of sad to know it was our last day but we are ready to move to our stay in Vigo.
• We finally saw some stork nests and storks, three nests at the top of the Melide Cathedral. Storks really like to next in church towers. We had been wondering where they all were.
• We see horreos, that is, corn drying structures, all over now we are in the heart of Galicia. I have dozens of pictures of them but I have talked a lot about them in previous blogs so I will refrain.

• A rest day in Lugo. Charlie walked the Roman wall again. Wynette walked around the old town. We walked to lunch. I ended up walking 4.2 miles. Per Wynette’s watch we walked 5.4 miles today.
• 21 flights of stairs. Lugo is a little hilly. Most of that was coming back from the laundry.
• I like walking on top of the wall. I would walk it 3-4 times around every day if I were staying here instead of Vigo where we will stay a week soon.
• If you use swipe keyboard typing, as I do, and you try to type “wall walk” you get “walk walk”. Not a problem for Wynette who uses speech input all the time. I really should change to that. But then we’ll both be talking to our phones. Also it seems funny in a crowded bar, where we are now, but W has her Bluetooth keyboard.
• There is a mother and two kids next to us. They are a bit loud but we like to hear children. In the square just outside there is a large playground with dozens of kids running around and yelling. Last night, after blogging in the same bar, we watched them for 45 minutes. We’ll probably do the same tonight.
• We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the cheaper part of town with the menu del dia for the amazing price of 10.80€, $12.32, each. It was pretty good but we’ve had better. We’ll be having Spanish food for the next three days, our last three days on the Camino Primitivo.

Kids at the bar from a few days ago. They were running around also and we enjoyed their energy. The older boy at the table, maybe 12, is spending his energy on his phone. You can see we were using the old trick of pretending to take a photo of Wynette while really taking a photo of the family with the kids, something we would not do directly.

Today was laundry day. They had five washers and four dryers for people clothes and a washer and a dryer for dog clothes. We have seen this a few times before, with signs saying not to wash pet things in the people clothes machines. There was a strongly worded sign:

I assume that the horse prohibition was a slight possibility and the other three are humorous.

This is a photo of an old church from a few days ago. We have not encountered the cross with a little circular window before. This is, no doubt, because of our lack of experience with churches. Maybe some helpful reader can enlighten us about this architectural feature in Christian churches? It was repeated along the side of the church. This photo is of the back.

Using a local direction sign and adding a yellow Camino arrow. Looks a little odd but makes perfect sense.

Wynette crossing on the streams.

The old, beloved Camino yellow arrows are being replaced by more modern signs.

The Galicians love their horreos. In this trip we have seen ones with thatched roofs, which we had not seen before. This is a small decorative one but we have seen full-sized ones with thatched roofs. We heard that old, authentic ones are valuable, with up to $20,000 or more.

Yet another style of nutcracker.

Wanna buy a lake property in Galicia? It looks made-made. We heard a loud chorus of frogs as we were passing by. One phone number for locals and another for international buyers.

A beautiful field we passed.

On the trail.

A pilgrim rest and vending area with nice tables and benches. It even had, on the left, a microwave and a toaster oven. The sign said feel free to use the facilities even if you don’t buy anything.