As we travel west from Playa de la Arnia, we have been following the Camino Santiago, well, we’ve really been seeing pilgrims from the Camino since just before San Sebastián.
The Camino Santiago is one of the three top religious pilgrimages for Christians, which include Jerusalem and Rome. If you are doing the Camino correctly you will be walking 780km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which takes about 31-35 days (doing a solid 20-30km per day). Most people opt to do the last 100-200km into Santiago de Compostela.
Last night we stayed in a little farm house that has been set up for pilgrims walking the Camino. They were surprised to see the Red Terror park up next to a group of Italian walkers 🤣.
On our way through yesterday we stopped in Oviedo and Lugo.
Lugo is world heritage listed for its Roman wall and medieval inner town. We took the opportunity to walk the wall and then meander the inner town. Interestingly we were both reminded of walking walls in Xian, China!
Our farm house stay in Negreira was a small village just out of Santiago. Google sent us down the most fascinating route to get there that required some nifty reversing and three point turns (the Red Terror is not that thin, even with ears folded in)!
The rain had set in again as we set off this morning, we were aiming for the heart of the Camino, Santiago de Compostela, but went via the tiny but cute Ponte Maceira, which was only minutes from our tiny farm house.
We headed into Santiago de Compostela for a quick visit and meander. The pilgrims were thick on the ground. Official counts have 2202 pilgrims arriving in Santiago today. Pre covid around 347,000 pilgrims did the Camino per annum, in 2024 that number was up over 500,000. Given that the number of Christian’s are falling per annum, I suspect that people are taking part in the Camino as a personal pilgrimage more so than a religious one. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely religious pilgrims as well, the Italian men that were in our Pension last night were pushing their mate who was in a wheel chair, and when he walked he was on 2 sticks, so maybe he had polio as a child? I’d assume they are Camino-ing for religious purposes.
This afternoon we are slipping down to northern Portugal to commence our adventures there. Adios Spain 🇪🇸
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