Seventeenth day on the Camino Portuguese and I have about 17 kms left to walk!

I feared I’d be walking along that busy N road outside my hotel but after just a short bit we swung off it, never to see it for the rest of the day. We dipped into a cold, dark forest which thankfully lost its gloom as the trees thinned as the trail continued. It’s only 7:20am but the sun isn’t over the horizon here yet. As soon as I came out of the forest a Camino cafe appeared – on a quiet back road serviced only by pilgrims I suspect that no locals ever visit. As I think there’s very few cafes on today’s route I stopped for my first coffee, at less than a mile in!

The mornings’ walk was lovely. Small villages with ancient crosses, between hedgerows with the forest trail cutting deep, past meadows still misty and dewy at 9am. In fact, it really was “country” until just 2kms from Santiago where the urban sprawl hit.

Most of the different caminos enter Santiago from a different direction, the Portuguese from the west, through the lovely Alameda Park. It’s a nice segue between the sprawl of the new town and the tight, tourist-packed streets of the old town.

Santiago is incredibly busy, every third person seems to be wearing backpack and heading to the cathedral. And it’s also a tourist mecca as it’s a major religious center as well as a historic town.

I didn’t really feel a sense of huge accomplishment like others around me as I only walked for two weeks and am continuing on Thursday. The Portuguese is also a more solitary route and I had only a nodding acquaintance with those I did meet. Except who should I see sitting in the middle of the square outside the cathedral? Kelly! She had left at 6am this morning from Padron and must’ve been walking very fast to beat me here.

Feeling hot and tired I headed to my pension but the room wasn’t ready yet so I had a glass of wine in their beautiful courtyard restaurant. The only occupied table was 3 pilgrims from the Camino Frances who insisted I join them for lunch.

Refreshed, I headed down to the Pilgrim Office to get a last stamp for my credential. Most pilgrims also want a Compostela, a religious certification of completion of their pilgrimage, but that wasn’t of interest to me, and, the line was reputed to be 1.5 hours long!

I had hoped to run into Tom, a fellow online camino forum member who volunteers at the Office, but I couldn’t see him. I sent him a PM through the website and he invited me to meet up with him and 3 other forum members for drinks. So, for not meeting a lot of people on trail I had a very social ending to my walk!

Tomorrow is a day off in Santiago, then Thursday I plan to walk to Finisterre. The forecast is poor again, fingers crossed it won’t be miserable.