Saturday, 27 July 2013

The walk into Santiago

The final day and we were underway by eight  am,cool again with a strong breeze but good for walking in.

We had a lovely walkway past hamlets,stone walls and lanes tucked away from the mainstream traffic .Gardens.chooks and geese evident again today.
We are walking across a fairly elevated area in the hills,close to the communication towers,antennae, aerials,TV repeaters  etc and lightly populated hamlets.

Running streams alongside the track for part of the way,Rio Tinto was just a head water at this point of the walk but it had a little bridge so a photo opportunity.Shades of the little brick road!

 The views down the valleys were lovely and we enjoyed the rural paths leading through the trees down into the more populated places.
We had a  convivial coffee  at Alfonso and met up with our fellow pilgrims who were taking a break-the Dutch pair and the German group plus the German man pulling a trolley with all his gear aboard. Everyone was very cheerful today as the end was in sight and we arranged to meet up for a meal once we made Santiago.
Brad and I ate our lunch on the top of Monte Agro in a clearing amongst the trees. people stared at us not sure if they are used to picnicking pilgrims!

From here the day got much warmer and the road surfaces harder so by the time the city was in sight we were looking forward to getting our boots off and relaxing. It was a long slog up to the city.We could see the towers of the catedral but the time ticked slowly-mind over matter stuff the last hour or so but we arrived eventually into the Portugues way .There are four pathways into the city which lead up to the catedral-one for each of the ways.We entered through the south gate and we were taken by the sight of hundreds of people milling around the city streets.People everywhere and finding our way for the last wee way was difficult but suddenly there it was in front of us.AMAZING.....