I registered at the official Santiago de Compostela website. It said that yesterday around 3900 pilgrims arrived. In August I think every day around 4000 pilgrims! It is really a large, no a really massive undertaking. From over the whole world pilgrims walk to the holy place of Santiago de Compostela.
Many routes lead to Santiago
I did some research about the caminho, and there are a lot of routes you could take. For me five or six days is really enough. I saw that the coastal Portuguese route merges after one day with the normal Portuguese route and then four days to Santiago. But Jaap-Willem saw that there is a spiritual route also and this one is around 55 km longer, so about 2 days. After Pontevedra you don’t go straight to Santiago but via the coast and you have to take a boat too. Well, we will see what we will do but the basic and short route is the following:
Day 1: Vigo-Redondela 16 km (You could walk 3 km to Cessantes, or 7 km extra to Arcade)
Day 2: Redondela- Pontevedra 23 km
Day 3: Pontevedra- Caldas de Reis 23 km, here we could take a spiritual path. Still to be researched.
Day 4: Caldas da Reis-Padron 19 km
Day 5: Padron-Santiago de Compostela 25 km
After the first day we will try to walk 3 km further to Cessantes. Obviously in this town there are better places to stay. Or if we are really fit we walk even further to Arcade, an extra 5 km. But at the moment we think that this is one stop too far. However, Arcade is the place of the best oysters of Galicia… Jaap-Willem loves to eat oysters, I don’t like them. I think he will have his portion at the start in Vigo, where they sell fresh oysters the whole morning on the streets.
Go Spiritual
We go spiritual! The Spiritual Variant begins in Pontevedra, where both Portuguese routes pass. This detour and this path ends in Pontecesures, where it rejoins the Portuguese route. The completion the last part to Santiago de Compostela, is the same.
Why the spiritual route of the Camino Portugues? It is a beauriful road parallel to the sea. The first two stages are by foot, while the last is by boat, from Vilanova de Arousa to Pontecesures. The story goes that Santiago’s body was carried to the church by this boat route.
Day 1 and 2: are the same as above
Day 3: Pontevedra-Armenteira 23 km including a huge climb of almost 500 meter up
Day 4: Armenteira – Vilanova de Arousa 23 km
Day 5: Vilanova de Arousa-Padron Boat trip 1,5 hour and 3 km walk to Padron
Day 6: Padron – Santiago 25 km
Padron
In the itineraries they walk 13 km after the boat tour trip to Teo. What they skip as a sleeping place is Padron. But Padron is not to be missed! We just like to rest a day but I have got some inside information from the Chief pilgrims wife! First you’ll see three crosses on some rocks in the water to lead the way to Santiago. And in Padron there is the church named after Santiago which has the stone which served as anchor that carried the boat. Ah… so this is the real church of Santiago. I guess we could end our day here!
Also we are told to eat here Pimento Padron. They are not hot but once in 1000 they are burning your tongue of. And then you are lucky! Jaap-Willem will try that once we are there. I suppose that when you harvest them too late, they are all hot!
Good reads
There are a lot of online discussions about the albergues, and routes for pilgrims. Good to study before starting. Jaap-Willem found the Ninja-app. This one every pilgrim need to check. It says what you could do during the caminho and which hostels you could find on the way. There are enough books available that guide you through the journey. During my caminho to Tomar I slept in an alberque in the John Brierley room. Ask a pilgrim which book he has brought, and this will be the one. This man is ‘the’ most famous chief pilgrim nowadays.
Serge the Plastic man
We borrowed a pilgrims guide from a very interesting French pilgrim. We call him the Plastic-man. He walks the caminho already for 20 years. He takes a bag of 150 liter and a waste grabber and collects all plastic he sees and in this way he cleans the caminho. He sometimes get rid of this bag 5 times. With Cinta I clean along our part of the caminho around the house, and it feels good to help preserving our planet. The Plastic-man, does something extra: he writes down what and how much of it he cleaned. And walking 20 km too! Respect for Serge, the Plastic-man.
Read about this caminho on my pilgrims blog Day 1-6
