Well, I can confirm that the Camino Frances is busier than the Norte! By 7am, more people had walked past our room than we had seen in the previous 35 days! As you can see, some people are travelling light and getting into the spirit of the Camino! They also have bins and much fancier way markers… Nevertheless we had a lovely walk, turning right just out of our hotel and following the trail of walkers (no trouble finding the way markers today!) out of town and then mostly gravel tracks and mostly in shady forests. First stop (for everyone on the Camino today it seemed – a guy actually rushed past us to grab the seat we were heading for!) was A Calzada for a coffee just under 6kms out of town. Bit of a tactical error – the next several bar/cafes were pretty empty as everyone had stopped at the first one! More people/gravel paths/forest to our next stop at Salceda, another coffee, then on to A Brea for lunch and a rest, just 3 or 4 kms from our destination for the day. The action in the bars is just frantic as wave after wave of pilgrims come through, some just looking, some drinking and eating, some just sitting down for a bit.
A guy we met last night who has done the Frances a few times says it is just the last 100kms that are like this and the rest is very beautiful…
With so many more walkers on the trail I was amazed at the number of younger walkers with rock tape, knee supporting bandages etc – maybe coming from close to zero exercise to what is a fairly strenuous trip.
We’re in a rural casa for the night tonight (with a pool!) so pretty relaxing!
A very gentle 18 kms today and 802km so far in total…
steelewalking 