Day 2 - Albergue de Sergude to Pensión O Mesón Novo in Mesón do Vento

Today we think was 17.3 km. A lot of up which was hot and difficult but then a pretty pleasant walk in the woods. Not as much pavement walking today. There was some on some very busy roads so we were very glad to get off the main roads as soon as the trail continued.

A Lavadero, place to do the family wash

A horreó, a traditional Galician place to store corn for the winter, up away from ground rodents. Everyone seems to have one in their yard.

A Spanish forest, eucalyptus planted in rows

The house where Felipe II stayed overnight in 1554 on his way to sail from Á Coruña for England  to marry Mary, sister of Henry VIII to cement ties between Spain and England. It's for sale and Wendy thought it would be a perfect vacation home!  Note royal coats of arms on exterior.

We enjoyed today and even better that we arrived before 3pm so lots of time to relax, have showers and catch up. We are staying in a pension and it's quite nice. Wendy's pack got forgotten by the post office at our last place so it took a couple of phone calls to fix that problem and she got many apologies. She bought a Spanish chip for my old unlocked iPhone. That has given her the option to phone and send texts here. Yesterday she got a phone call from a fellow who works at the post office, phoned from Santiago and asked to interview her about how the post office can help pilgrims as they walk. So she has arranged that for when we finish walking. She will have lots to report which is why she is trying to push the system to see how it works.  The post office here in Spain has taken on the business of transporting pilgrim backpacks, which could be profitable for them. Their trucks are already on the road so seems like a good fit. 

This afternoon we met our first other pilgrim, a fellow staying at the same place as we are, an English man doing his first Camino and decided to start with a short one. We saw a young gal just as we were turning off to this pension. She went to the municipal Albergue at Bruma de Hospital. Wendy did not want to stay there after her overnight there last fall. It is interesting to try different types of accommodation. 

Going to leave you with my food picture for today. Lunch time we were at Casa Avelina. Once again the gal was excited we came in to her place (we actually didn't have much choice). She brought over a ragged book mark to show us another Canadian who had come in to her place. It was Sue Kenney advertising one of her books.

Lunch was a bocodilla of our choice. We chose ham and cheese and this is what we got.

So we both have 1/2 for tomorrow. Huge. The gal kept coming back to see if we liked it.

And so we press on tomorrow. The knees complain at night but we are enjoying the walk. We had some rain today after gorgeous sun this morning. Rain expected again tomorrow but iso far it's been 20 minute squalls and as soon as it stops our stuff all dries out. 

Walking on -

Wendy and Marion

Day 1 Walking À Coruña to Sergude,

One book says it 16km, the next book says 19km but both our fitbits gave us 24km as the count for yesterday. We will claim 24 because it felt like every one of those. We started off after a great breakfast at the hotel, compliments of the hotel manager. Our new best friend, Carolina came out to say good bye but was very surprised when we said we were walking from the hotel. She thought we would take a taxi to the outskirts. It was a long trudge out of town, all on pavement and it seemed to go on forever.  Took 2 hours - felt like this guy who we met on the trail.

We finally cleared the city and walked along the esplanade of the River Mero. 

The walking was easy for the first bit, flat and scenic. Hardly any markers to tell us we were on the right track. We followed our guide book and were very pleased that the directions were clear. We passed a number of gorgeous old churches - all locked. 

After we had left town there were more way markers so we were a little more comfortable about where we were. Did not see any other pilgrims walking all day. We did not arrive to our municipal Albergue until 5:45. We thought that was very late and we were really dragging the last hour. It's a purpose built Albergue and quite modern. We were the only ones staying there. The gal working said its been quiet. 

We walked down the road for dinner at Casa Adolfo where the owner was very excited to serve 2 pilgrims. She made dinner for us giving us a choice of meat, eggs, potatoes or salad. We gave her our choice and then she brought us all of it, along with a jug of house red wine.

We needed 4 more people to join us for this much food. €12 each.

Day 2 coming up.

Wendy and Marion

Last day in À Coruña

I wrote this blog yesterday at the end of our first day of walking. We were staying in an Albergue with spotty wi-fi. We didn't think there was any wi-fi but after dinner we discovered If we leaned against the window in the lounge or went out into the courtyard we could get a bit of wi-fi. So I wrote the blog then went looking for pictures, lost the Internet connection and then the blog disappeared. It's very frustrating when that happens and it had been a long day. So I gave up.

The one thing we did do on our last day that was such a treat was having Manuel the interpreter guide at The Tower of Hercules come to pick us up at the hotel and take us on a tour of this Unesco World Heritage Site, a Roman lighthouse built in the first century and still in use today. Wendy had met Manuel last November when she was here for the conference. Lanzada, his boss organized for him to be our guide. He is a fascinating historian and knows everything about the Roman period in Galicia. He gave us the full tour. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the outside. You can see what it looks like by just googling the name. When the tower was first built olive oil was used for the flame to create the light. Then later coal was the fuel and now it is fully automated and electric.

I took some pictures from the top of the tower, we could see the whole countryside.

À Coruña from the tower.

It's in the middle of a park 

The coastline that needed protecting from the English

We are sorry to leave this lovely city, we've enjoyed it. Our new best friend is Carolina, the concierge at our hotel. She has worked hard setting up the luggage transfer for Wendy after the post office told us they don't do it here, only from Ferrol up the coast. She made a ton of phone calls and organized everything, including a reservation for our 2nd night of walking at a Pensíon.

Time to go walking.

Buen Camino

Marion and Wendy

Treats and Surprises

We had a slow start today even though I had been awake quite early listening to the church bells when they started ringing at 7am and also the different birdsong. Love it!  Wendy wanted to show me The Church of Santiago, a very old church built on top of what was a Roman temple. When she was here last November the church was always closed so she expected the same but just as we arrived the door was opening up for visitors to have a look. The church warden got very excited when Wendy asked if he had a stamp for our credentials (identifying us as Canadian pilgrims) and started touring us all around the inside showing us various statues of St. James and giving us the FULL history of the church, all in Spanish. Wendy got every 10th word and I was only able to catch a word every once in awhile. He spoke very quickly with lots of big numbers for the different centuries when things were built. He took us into his office and pulled chairs out for us so he could stamp our cards and give us a talk about what it means to be a pilgrim. We did feel special and certainly appreciated his interest and excitement about the history of the church, St James and the pilgrimage from À Coruña to Santiago. 

Iglesia of Santigo, daytime and evening

13th century sculpture of St. James, inside the church

Our second surprise was being invited for lunch with Lanzada, our friend from Santiago who has been over to Victoria a few times for our Camino workshops. She now works as the Manager of Tourism for À Coruña. We met her at her office at 2:30 (Spanish time for lunch) and she took us to a special place in town where she knew the chef, one of her top 12 chefs in the city. It's called Pulperia de Melide. Melide is another town in Galicia famous for its pulpo (octopus). Same family. Neither one of us care much for this Galician delicacy but said we would both try it again, given that this chef does an especially good job with it. So lunch was a small bowl of pulpo, some potatoes with cayenne pepper, a wonderful fish, Cabracho done in tempura and fried along with strips of red and green peppers. It was served back on the fish with a sauce made of mayonnaise, garlic and something green. Quite delicious and quite unique.

Cabracho en tempura, before and after we had eaten.

Potato and pulpo

Lunch was a real treat, being out with Lanzada at a place she picked just for us to show off her city. We had a yummy dessert that the three of us shared but we had eaten it before I remembered to snap a picture. We left Lanzada and walked back to our hotel, only to find she had phoned ahead to chat with the manager. When we got to our room a waiter arrived with another bottle of complimentary water and a plate made especially for us to make us feel welcome.  We were also invited to complementary breakfasts for the next two mornings, and they put on an amazing spread!  We had not taken the breakfast option when making our booking because of the extra cost so we're very excited to accept this "gift".

Later we went out for dinner at O'Sampaio and had a delicious dinner of Raciones (rations are bigger than tapas, smaller than dinner). We ordered Raxo de Pollo con salsa de queso (little chicken bits fried with garlic and cheese) and Ensalada de Queso de Cabra (goat cheese salad). And a glass of rioja wine (a treat when we are in Spain). What a great day! We were thinking of forgetting the walk, and just staying here and enjoying this city. But no, as our blog title (2walk on) says, we will walk out on Thursday, if the hiking pants still fit!!

Buen Camino

Marion and Wendy

Gatwick to À Coruña

Two short flights took us from Gatwick to Barcelona and then on to À Coruña and a bus ride from the airport to our hotel situated right on the habourfront in the old town. It has been cloudy so far but that does not diminish the beauty of this city, the capital of the province of Galicia. Now we get 2 full days to get acclimatized to Spain and over the jet lag. That only seems to bother one of us, the older of the two of us always seems ready to roll the minute her feet hit the ground. She wants to just get out there and see everything there is to see. While I need a bit of time to get organized.

À Coruña from the plane.

view from our hotel room when I got up this morning. The cruise ship came in while we slept.

À Coruña Ayuntamiento - city hall - after dinner last night

And speaking of dinner, we found out Wendy's Spanish didn't quite get our order right with the wine. She thought she had ordered a glass each of a Galician wine which we love, but got a full bottle. Not usually a problem except we had already stopped for drinks (a nice large glass of Albariño) earlier and didn't think we really needed that much but of course couldn't let it go to waste. It was an interesting walk home on the cobbled streets.

Drinks earlier then dinner below.

 

Gambas a la plancha and ensalada mixta

We had another dish follow these two which was bits of beef on a skewer over fries and whole small green peppers. The fries are deepfried in olive oil so are quite different from home. All nummy. 

We are both looking forward to today to wander around but first we will find the post office to mail the parcels to two albergues for Canada Day. Canadian Company of Pilgrims, of which Wendy is the national president, supports these two places for the week around July 1st.

Hasta luego

Wendy and Marion

Across the pond!

Our ferry trip, bus ride, sky-train ride then 3:30pm Air Transit flight to Gatwick was smooth and uneventful, hardly even any bumps. We landed in the UK right on time, picked up our checked bag with our hiking poles and packages of Canada flags and other Canada goodies for the two albergues that the CCOP sponsors for Canada week each year. Mary put the big envelopes together and we will mail them to Rabanal and Miraz when we get to A Coruña. 

We are spending the night at a hotel just 3 km from the Gatwick airport and tomorrow we will carry on to Spain. We did this because of the connections which would have had us waiting around all day at the airport for a 10:30 pm flight to A Coruña, and a midnight arrival. This is the first time we have spent any time here. We walked to the Gatwick Manor this afternoon (5 min away) and wandered around on its grounds which is in a very pretty setting with lots of flowering bushes, including lilacs, and great birdsong even with lots of airplanes taking off in the background. The pub/restaurant was recommended so we made an early reservation for dinner. We both had the Sunday roast special. Wendy had the lamb and I had the rib beef. I was thinking standing rib but it turned out to be more short rib but looked like dinosaur rib, the bone was so huge. Tasty with Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes done in goose fat, (who has goose fat sitting around to use for cooking??) 

Gatwick manor and pub.

Roast lamb at the top, roast dinosaur on the bottom

Spain tomorrow where dinner schedules and options will change totally. Dinner tonight 5pm and dinner tomorrow night 9pm. What a difference a few degrees of latitude bring.

Buen Camino!

Marion and Wendy

We will find out tomorrow how much Wendy's duolingo Spanish lessons have helped her. I have stopped my duolingo French lessons just for the 3 weeks so I am not totally confused.

New Boots! Old Knees

Are We Ready??
Tomorrow we will fly off to Spain again. We decided in January that we would like to see Spain in the spring. All our other trips to Spain have been in the fall. We are both excited to see the spring flowers many of our camino buddies talk about.

This time we are planning on walking a much shorter camino than we have done before. We will fly into À Coruña, situated on the north coast of Spain and provincial capital of Galicia. The route is called Camino Ingles or the English way. The history of this route tells us it was used by the English and Irish who would come by boat to the harbour of À Coruña then walk to Santiago. It is just over 70km and we expect to walk it in 4 days. We will spend one night in Santiago before hiking west to Finisterre, on the Atlantic coast, about 80km, which we expect to do in five days. This has been on our list for some time so we are excited to finally get the chance to see "the end of the world" in the days when the world was still thought of as flat.

We both have new boots after our very wet hiking in New Zealand last year. We were working hard to work those boots in and get ready for this trip until 3 weeks ago when Wendy developed a knee issue. And since I hate to be left out of anything, my knee hurts too. So off we go with knee braces, ibprofen and Voltaren gel. New boots, old knees but the walking is calling us.

Looking forward to our first cafe con leche and some great Galician wine!

Buen Camino!

Marion & Wendy