Daily updates

And that’s a wrap! San Francisco here we come, right back where we started from. Very mixed emotions, sad that such an amazing trip is over, proud of how well we did physically and emotionally, and happy to be back in our own beds, looking forward to seeing family and friends and talking about this…

We enjoyed a well deserved sleep in this morning, then after checking in for tomorrow’s flight to Madrid we headed out to obtain our Compostelas! The shop windows were very distracting, not clothes or tourist items, but food! The sandwiches overflowing with meat and the Torreznos de Soria (thick cut pork belly strips fried slowly…

Our final day of walking the Camino! We both can’t believe it- after 11 days of walking over 215 kilometers (137 miles), we are almost done! From our hotel room window we saw folks setting off, including a group of Italian teenagers we had passed a few times the day before. They were remarkably quiet…

A late start today, breakfast didn’t start until 8:15 (we are learning to be patient for our coffee!), then it took a bit before the taxi picked us up and dropped us off in Caldas de Reis. It was market day, we watched the vendors setting up stalls and putting out their wares as we…

This is our 3rd to last day on the Camino! As Vizzini would say ‘Inconceivable!’ Today’s walk was about 13.5 miles, mostly in lovely forested areas with the occasional side trip on cobblestone roads and tarmac. We got an earful when we walked into a church and the bells started ringing like crazy! Maybe it…

We had a day off from walking the Camino and decided to spend the morning exploring Cambarro, the little town outside of Pontevedra where we were staying. The old quarter has tiny criss-crossing cobblestone streets and many ‘”hórreos” (raised granaries), “casas marineras” (sea houses) and crosses. There were lots of tourist shops selling all kinds…

We enjoyed the cool morning air as we made our way out of Arcade across the medieval Pontesampaio bridge, climbing through the neighborhood and into the woods again. This was a particularly gorgeous section of the Camino, a gradual climb through the trees. Our reward at the top was a coffee/snack cart! A church built…

We headed out in the dark this morning as Spain is one hour ahead of Portugal, so it was still dark at 7:45 am. We had an almost 14 mile trek ahead of us, so the earlier we got on the road the better. It was a beautiful dawn, going past fields covered in morning…

And we are off on the second half of our Camino! The route took us through the fortress so we got to see what it was like at 8am – very quiet and a little spooky especially as we made our way down and to the bridge over the Rio Minho to Spain. Espana! We…

We got up early and walked to the local cafe to get coffee as breakfast wasn’t until 7:40. We left the room key thinking we didn’t need to lock our room as we weren’t going to be gone long and everyone else was asleep. Unfortunately we didn’t realize there was a fob on our room…