Camino: O Cebreiro to Triacastela

It’s still very dark at seven o’clock when I wake up, and even after Carl and I get up and dressed it’s still dark and cool outside our window in the former monastery.  And, it is so quiet!  Not even any roosters crowing.  We left the shutters open all night, both to dry clothing and to allow air, but there is a chill this morning.  We are very far west in the European time zone, which explains the late mornings and long, languid evenings.  Both lend themselves to photography.

Breakfast is in the same room where we had dinner last night, just above the bar and behind the gift shop.  It’s a hearty Galician farm breakfast of bread and ham and soft white cheese, plus juices, coffee and cereals like muesli – but with real butter and 100 percent milk.

We walkers gathered in front of the refectory at nine o’clock and it’s still windy and cool.  Everyone has jackets on, and most are buttoned up under the chin, even though we will begin by walking down hill. We moved off, stopping for photos of the stupendous views across the valley north of us. 

Checkpoint in Liñares

The Camino bends around the north side of a hill and down we begin walking.  Mary Ellen identified the mountain ash tree with its bright red berries – a wood used for bow making (before the advent of the fiberglass tree).

It is pleasantly cool, and the trees break the wind, and we have sun shining on the hills around us. We descend easily, and before long we see the grey stone buildings that form the tiny village of Liñares. Leslie helped Celso figure out who had arrived.  He seems to have as much trouble with our names as we do with his.  We climbed a hill and finally reached Alto de San Roque, where there is a pilgrim statue and great views in all directions.  But not much else.

We continued on and there came a pretty good climb – just about as steep as yesterday’s, but much shorter – and that finally brought us to Alto do Poio where, finally, a glimpse of the edge of a Coca Cola umbrella signaled the end of the climb.  There was a little coffee shop at the top where I got a café cortado, and everyone got something to drink before we continued toward lunch.

Joe and I were talking about Ex-Im Bank cases when we walked through Hospital and passed the place where the little lady makes crepes and offers them to the pilgrims.  She was there, talking with two pilgrims. We said a hearty “Buenos Dias” and kept right on walking.  She wanted us to stop but we kept talking to each other.  That saved us the one Euro that she charges the embarrassed pilgrims – who think it’s just a free offering until after they have thanked her and told her how good her crepes are.  Nice little racket – imagine one Euro times two hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims annually!

We passed through a lot of cattle pastures with gently chiming cow bells and arrived at Viduedo sooner than I expected.  Cate and Alex had set up another fine luncheon, this time featuring salad, chorizo, tetilla cheese, little tomato sandwiches with sardines on top, etc.  A fine repast, but best of all a chance to sit down for a little while.

We were off by 2:10 and soon walking past the kiliometer markers – “mojones” – and the large limestone quarry below to our right. Tradition has it that each peregrino would carry a large rock to Santiago, where they were used to make mortar for the building and rebuilding of the cathedral there.  We chose not to carry a rock.

I walked the last part of the day’s 13.7 mile trip with Pat and Katie. We stopped for a lot of photos of trees and small stone churches.  In the garden of one house there was an offering of small dishes of raspberries and currents for one Euro, so Pat bought one and we feasted for a way.  Finally we gave the rest of the currents away to some other pilgrims having a beer by the road.  We also passed a really enormous chestnut tree, said to be 800 years old and more than 2.7 meters in diameter, on the way into Triacastela town.

The last major sightseeing and stamp opportunity was the romanesque Iglesia de Santiago with its large cemetery. It is right on the road as you enter the town. 

Iglesia de Santiago

I indulged in a little caña for 1.20 Euro to celebrate the conclusion of the five hours of walking.  Besides, everyone had to wait in the little sidewalk café for others to arrive before we could leave on the bus.  Again, the walking is not hard, but the sitting sure is enjoyable.

We drove about a half hour on the road to Sarria, the road we won’t walk tomorrow, and arrived at our hotel, the Torre de Barrio manor house.  It’s a large house with a central, covered courtyard room, a chapel of its own, and a rich garden tended by the owner and manager, Marisol.

Refreshments in Triacastela

Carl and I were assigned a ground floor room that in fact has pretty good wifi.  Trouble is that with everyone on the same wifi network, it’s pretty slow.   After initial showers, there was quite a gathering of internet-starved pilgrims around the table in the main courtyard room.

Dinner was memorable, beginning with great bread, as usual, a plate of grilled-in-olive-oil fresh vegetables, salad, and roast lamb – five months old, Marisol says, when asked.  The lamb brings back memories of spring lamb in Spain – delicious flavor and crispy skin. This was accompanied by red wine from the manor house and a white wine that was very good too.  Our travelers are becoming accustomed to eating at relatively Spanish hours – lunch at 1:30 and dinner at 8:30 p.m.  – something many thought impossible at the beginning.

Camino: Villafranca del Bierzo to O Cebreiro

Villafranca del Bierzo

Today we get an early start at 8:30 to bus back to Villafranca del Bierzo and pick up where we left off. Alex briefed us last night that it will be difficult and longer, with an uphill climb of a couple thousand feet at the end to O Cebreiro which sits on the top of a hill.  Many of our number are looking to use the van for part of the way today. All of us are calculating whether this will be too difficult.

Our path out of Villafranca del Bierzo leads along the Valcarce river and a highway into or out of town.  There a few pilgrims out, and a few vehicles in the cool morning air.  The mountains around us are high, so the sunlight is only hitting the higher hills. We are in shadows.  We all are  walking at a much faster pace today.  It occurred to me that perhaps we were going too slowly yesterday. We got passed by so many pilgrims, and we passed very few if any ourselves.  I suspect the newness of the experience, the many opportunities to take photos, and the diverse conversations slowed us yesterday. Perhaps also we know that this will be a more difficult day because of the altitude we must climb to O Cebreiro. But at the start it is pretty flat.  

Pareje - the balcony

We barely paused at Pareje, which had the longest balcony in northern Spain (per my guidebook, which tends to provide such random facts) and a bar/restaurant where we got a stamp and some used the facilities.  There was much discussion of the words “servicios” and “WC” and how to pronounced them in Spanish.  If people keep asking for the baño someone will get a bath. We kept walking up along the national highway on a side path that once was painted yellow for the pilgrims.  It’s now quite faded, perhaps in recognition that the new super highway above us has taken most of the traffic away from this local two-lane highway.  

There was a coffee stop and checkpoint in Trabadelo, and then continued on.  There was a nice little stone church with Romanesque influence there, so we again got stamps.  As we walk along,  there are cows with their bells and some horses along the way, but farms seem small and there are almost no grape vines at all.  It is surprising how the vino culture dried up as soon as we left Villafranca del Bierzo.  There are lots of signs about fishing in the river, including many areas that are “catch and release” but also some river banks that are “prohibido de pescar” entirely.  The swift little river Valcarce is our constant companion, usually shaded, often surging along, and a little lower down on our left side.

I spoke today more with other pilgrims who are not part of our group.  Coming out of Trabadelo I struck up a conversation with a young Spanish girl who had just finished her university degree and who wanted to start a “casa rural” type of guest house with her “novio.”  We talked about the American movie about the Camino, “The Way,” which she had not seen.  Surprisingly, it has not been released yet in Spain, she said. (Later Alex told me it has been released, but for unexplained reasons made little impact among Spaniards here.)

I also talked with some Germans, a father and son team who had biked part of the way and were now walking more of the Camino. There were others with whom I had shorter conversations or listened to as we walked together.  Then there were the Austrians we talked about skiing with. Most of the Europeans can speak English, but Spanish is also often a lengua franca.

Saracen castle on the hilltop

I began to hope for a lunch stop as soon as I saw the sign saying “Vega de Valcarce 1 km.”  First that was an overlong one kilometer, and then we walked through the entire town without finding our bus, Celso, or lunch.  I did spot the ruins of the Saracen castle on the bluff overlooking the town, but that was little satisfaction because it was far too high to climb up and look at.  Eventually we did come to Alex in the road, who assured us that it is “just ten minutes” ahead to the lunch stop.  It was in fact almost to the next village, but it was fine when we got there and found Cate’s luncheon preparations. Ah, a chance to sit down!

After lunch, we began the much anticipated climb.  It started simply enough as we turned off the national highway and onto a small asphalt road that wound through Las Herrerias. That soon turned into a winding path that ascended through a forest of trees.  The camino did however become steeper and more rocky as we went up.  There were few other hikers seen, but we did pass a couple of people, including one couple where the girl was struggling – so much that Carl gave her a pull up the hill. (Don’t know how her boyfriend felt about that, but he was laboring under a large pack and was in no position to object.)

The hill just keeps going up, and at a considerable incline.  I used my walking poles to good effect, and I was glad I had shed my back pack and carried only my camera and a bottle of water. You fall into a rhythm of sticks and feet, a steady pace, up and up.  There really were not many pictures to take at this stage because all our effort went into the climb.

It got real steep and rocky.  I was walking up with Carl, using both sticks and leaning forward.  Just keep that rhythm going, putting one step after another. We stopped once in a while in the shade to catch our breath.  Fortunately, we were shaded by trees over the path most of the way.  Finally, at Laguna, where one should begin to see “horreos” but we don’t, about two or three miles before the finish, the tree cover opened up and we had great views out across the valley and toward the mountains in the distance. I found myself with Pat and Leslie and Maria.  Maria of course wanted to run up the path!

Finally, still climbing, we see the bus parked in a lot to one side.  But we could see that the top of the hill was to the right, so we perversely insisted on going up there.  Having climbed this far, nothing but the top will do.  We took pictures, made bets about the altitude and the temperature, and savored the hard-earned views in the afternoon sun.

Our accomplishment, as we stand on the hill above O Cebreiro, is a measured total of 18.6 miles walked in six hours and 16 minutes of moving time, and we reached an altitude of  4272 feet.   We started the day at about 1900 feet.  We never could figure out the air temperature, but it must have been about 65.

Below us, near the chapel and the rectory are the round, thatch-roofed “pallozas” that were the combination home and barn for early Galician people in this area. Our hotel is in fact the former monastery, and we're in the monks cells -- well, probably two monk cells per modern room.  And, each room has a bathroom with shower -- something the monks probably did not enjoy.

Dinner at the monastery, after evening mass, was quite good, if a bit rustic.

Camino: Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo

Today is our first real day of real walking.  We gathered in the old main square of old Ponferrada at 9:00 a.m. and sorted ourselves out. It seemed we would not need walking sticks today because much of the trail is on roads or sidewalks and fairly level.

By 9:10 we were walking out of Ponferrada, tracing a path down by the river Sill and up the hill by the electric company museum (located in an old power station).  We passed the little Santiago replica chapel and walked out through a residential district of nice homes with gardens and flowers spilling from the balconies.  This was more like a stroll than a hike, and our line stretched out about a kilometer, with John way up in front. We inevitably switched around, walking and talking with first one person or two and then others. It was cool and partly cloudy, so I only removed my sweater after an hour or so.

We stopped in our first town, Columbrianos, for coffee and a stamp in our passports about 10:30.  There was an ancient-looking “ermita” there, but it was closed up. (Alex says there’s enough theft that the churches in villages are more often kept locked when no one is around.) We had a few drops of rain as we walked through our second village, Fuentes Nuevas, and stopped in a church that was giving out stamps.  I should have gotten my stamp at the church instead of the coffee bar earlier because the church ones are much prettier.  

By noontime we were pretty much out in the country, walking past apple orchards and fig trees. We walked through a town with factories, including a large glass factory that once supplied material for the shiny facings of all those tall, ultra-modern office buildings you see in Spanish cities.  The factory however seemed very quiet with no cars around, and we thought it might have been a victim of the GFC (aka, Global Financial Crisis, as the Europeans call the 2007-present unpleasantness).

All day we were passed by other pilgrims.  Most of them had full packs and shoes hanging off the back.  Usually they were in pairs, sometime two guys, or a couple. Their pace did not seem much faster, but somehow they steadily left us behind them.  I did not think about it at the time, but our pace must have been a bit slow. Of course, there were also the bicycle pilgrims who seemed to suddenly sneak up behind you and then call out as they passed.

At kilometer 195 we passed a little house where three guys were squeezing grapes. Asked about the cosecha, they said it would begin any day now.  They were going to take a sample of the grapes (or maybe the grape juice) to the cooperative for analysis to determine which day to begin.  They were good natured fellows, and they allowed us to take pictures, try winding the press, and even to sample the light green grape juice that was spilling out in a steady stream at the bottom.

We had a picnic lunch under plane trees just before Cacabelos town. Alex had brought a good salad with cheese and chorizo, as well as cookies and melon (the one that looks like a honeydew but is much more tasty). Piel de sapo melons have a super-sweet flavor with a juicy, honedew-like appearance. Piel de sapo literally translates to "Skin of Toad."  

Suddenly, John jumped up and set off.  He was gone before any of the rest of us finished eating.  Maria explained that he had walked fast all morning, gotten way ahead, but failed to get any stamps. So he was determined to make up time. Or something.

We continued through Cacabelos, down narrow streets with bright flowers hanging from the balconies and wood timbered houses.  We’re beginning to see bodegas and companies involved in wine production.  We looked into a stone building with lots of wine barrels and a tasting event in progress, but did not stop.  Some looked for a bathroom in La Moncloa – that is the restaurant famous in all the guidebooks for giving a free glass of wine to any pilgrim who stops in and says, in Spanish, the precise phrase “Do you have a cup of wine for a poor pilgrim who is thirsty?” 

Some of us continued on. We found an albergue on the outskirts of town, built in a semi-circle and with clean restroom facilities where Joe, Mary Ellen and I stopped briefly.

Then we began the long climb up the side of the highway to Pieros.  This was unremarkable, but for being steep and hot in the afternoon sun, which had by now come out in force.  Alex and our driver met us at the top with water.  Then assured we were nearing the end with only about four miles to go, so we turned off the highway and into vineyards.

We were walking on dirt roads with stones in them, clearly made for farm vehicles.  It was up and down, sort of rolling roads and passing through the occasional very small village. A number of bicycle pilgrims passed us as we went up and down the hills. There were vines on either side of us, and they were bright green and healthy-looking, much better than the ones we saw before lunch.  The grapes were smaller, but heavy with juice and some bunches had even fallen off the vine and lay on the reddish brown earth.  Once in a while there is a sign saying which vineyard these vines belong to and which wines are produced from them.  Alex says that this Bierzo wine is the coming fashion in Spain, and it is becoming more popular across Europe.  

Finally we realized from the GPS that we were nearing Villafranca del Bierzo.  At the top of a hill, Pat Brown and I met Alex and Cate who had come up to meet us.  Cate showed us the way down to the plaza past the Puerta de Perdon, where injured or sick pilgrims could ask for their indulgences without having to complete the camino.  We learned that Lea had fallen and scraped her knee, so we had one potential for the Puerta.  But Lea, being tough, refused the dispensation and determined to carry on.  She has gotten some medical treatment by Maria.

In the plaza we stopped for a well-earned beer from the nearby bar that is offering happy hour prices – a draft beer for one Euro.   We had done 15.8 miles in a little less than 6 hours, according to my GPS.

We boarded the bus and returned to Pontferrada in about twenty minutes, passing many of the sights we remembered from the day.  About half of us volunteered for the tour of the Knights Templar castle, a spectacular heap of stone on the steep bank of the Sill River. As castles go, it  puts those showcase “castles” in the Loire valley in France to shame.  This one was really made for defensive warfare, with battlements and drawbridges and opposed, angled towers that forced attackers to turn 90 degrees if they ever successfully entered the first line of defenses.  You could make great movies here!

Dinner was in the Casa del Obrero, a cavernous, noisy hall where we were seated at one end.  There seemed to be a football game on the television at the other end of the hall. We had a seeming endless number of plates and dishes, including lentil soup, pasta with chicken, roast vegetables, and paella.  Then each of us got a plate, in my case fish (merluza) stuffed with crabmeat.  Others had chicken, veal or codfish.  Dessert was a tray of white and black china spoons with chocolate and cheese cake covered in whipped cream.  Quite a meal!

Camino: Leon to Ponferrada

Catedral de Leon

I got out by about 8:30 a.m. and took some pictures in the cool blue early morning light around Leon.  The cathedral had a different look at that hour.  I roamed until I found the Plaza Major – totally deserted at that hour – and  the Plaza de Santa Maria del Camino, with a nearby hostel, and the Puerta de la Moneda, traditional entry point through the city walls for pilgrims.  There I got a particularly good picture of one of the brass shells embedded in the street, as a starting point for our own pilgrimage.

I went back up to the cathedral and went through the museum which I’d not done the day before.  It was genuinely worthwhile, although poorly laid out and with signs only in Spanish.  Still the Bible from 920 A.D. was worth seeing, along with a particularly good crucifixion statue mentioned in the Michelin guide and the Plateresque stairway.

I encountered the entire Reston Runners group in the street café a block or two from the hotel just as they were sitting down for lunch.  I joined in, even though this was the same place Judy and Lea and I ate yesterday’s lunch.  Well, the guy was very forbearing about our confusion and misunderstandings of menu items, etc.  

Alex and assistant guide Cate showed up at the hotel just about three o’clock. We had a general information briefing in the hotel dining room before departing with all our luggage on the bus.  It’s a twenty-two passenger bus, so there is plenty of room, even with everyone’s backpacks.

Pilgrims' shoes - outside the dorms

We're arrived Ponferrada after a pretty bumpy trip over the mountains from Leon.  There were Camino signs and yellow arrows all along the way.  We paused at Racambla del Camino for a coke and bathroom break, and a chance to see up close our first “real” pilgrims (the ones carrying all their belongings in a backpack) in an albergue.  The shoe rack outside was impressive – I guess no one wants the stinky shoes in the sleeping area.   

We also stopped at the Iron Cross above El Acebo to leave our stone/sins behind and take a group photo.  

Left our sins at the Iron Cross

Dinner in Ponferrada was held outdoors, in a courtyard under the castle walls.  We enjoyed a good feast of multiple dishes including a memorable vegetable salad, hush puppies (as Alex called them), and roast lamb.  There was lots of local white and red wine.

Lake Audubon

It's really fun to see the work of a good photographer, and it is even better when it is a local guy and his work covers the area you know so well -- because you too live there.

That is the case with Jim Kirby, who recently won a U.S. Forest Service contest with this photograph of Lake Audubon, the one right down the hill from our Lawyers Road property.

According to the Reston Patch newsletter, Kirby won the grand prize in the U.S. Forest Service's "My Neighborhood Forest" contest.

Kirby said he felt the image of Reston, showing what he called the "amazing forest that we live under," was just what the U.S. Forest Service was looking for. The contest challenged photographers to take a neighborhood photo that showed urban or community forests.

"The real winner here is Reston, which truly is an urban forest," Kirby says.  There are more photos of Reston, local people, and northern Virginia on his website: www.jimkirbyphoto.com.