Distance: 16.19 miles/26km
Elevation: 1970ft/600m
Time: 5h 51m
Yesterday’s mad rush of people out of Sarria was a distant memory after today. This morning we left Portomarín in the dark. You could see a smattering of headlights in the distance but the crowds of people we experienced yesterday seemed long gone. My dad and I had theorized that in the rush of excitement, everyone left early from Sarria (we usually plan to start walking by 7am or so). After everyone else’s first day of walking, they must have felt tired, sore, and maybe even hungover, therefore leaving a lot later in the morning from Portomarín. Our plan to leave at 7am again from Portomarín, at the risk of potentially meeting the same crowds as yesterday, proved successful and we were strolling, on our way to Palos de Reí.
The cold morning never seemed to have left the day as the winds got cooler and some clouds settled in for a bit. We welcomed the cold though, as the rolling hills and then just constant increasing elevation kept us comfortably warm. We met a kind Irish lad and chatted with him for a bit and then eventually separated (we learned that he lived in Austin for a summer to play with the Celtic Cowboys, a Gaelic football team).
Aside from the people we met, my dad and I talked about what his experience was like when he wanted to marry my mom, my expectations of the future, and other deep personal topics. It’s days like today, with the weather keeping us cool and the varying terrain keeping things interesting, along with conversations one doesn’t usually get to have with their parent, that I deeply cherish.
We arrived to Palas de Reí feeling fresh and strong, ate lunch at a nearby bar, and napped.
Palas is an incredibly small town, you could cross the town in about 10 minutes each way. We went to the supermarket to get our breakfast, the Panaderia, a small Camino store, another supermarket, and a church – all in the matter of about 2 hours or less.
For dinner: jamón serrano, a local cheese, bread, membrillo, a pear, and some wine, all shared with a pair of friends that we met along the way the last few days.
Tomorrow we do one of the last two stages we have left and it’ll be our longest one as of late: 28km/17miles!
Enjoy the photos 🙂
In case you missed it in the previous post, Galician horreos were storage for maíz, grains, and other food items that also allowed them to naturally dry. These storage structures are placed on individual flared pillars to prevent rats & mice from climbing in to eat the food. These are considered historical structures in Spain and it is illegal to knock them down, therefore many owners co-opt them and use them for normal storage, refurbish them, or paint them, and many even feel inspired to make tiny models of them. I feel like they are a beloved symbol of Galicia, as I begin to see more and more of a variety of these structures, large and small.
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