So - this was my third walk along this route. The first time had been in 2015, when it had been enlivened by a drunken lunch stop at an organic cafe. So, this one again....
A long climb out of Redondela was the start, and up to Cafe Jumboli on the N550. It was raining pretty hard at this point.
There was a woman in Cafe Jumble who was ordering Martini Rosso. At 10am in the morning I thought this was pretty hard-core but couldn't place her accent. Turned out she was the first Hungarian I have met on camino. First peregrina who drinks vermouth at 10 in the morning too.
I saw one pilgrim helping an elderly pilgrim into a taxi too. I immediately jumped into judgemental mode, reckoning that this was a pretty poor show. More on why I'm an idiot later.
So it was a walk in the rain alongside a track I had done only 6 months prior. The difference was the number of pilgrims. So many - scores now we had the coastal and central camino combined.
Across the bridge at Arcade after a quick snack. The official camino route has one of the most pointless detours in Arcade - cross the. busy N550 twice for no apparent reason. One of the advantages of knowing this route is that one can miss out such pains in the ....
Then the steep hill on the other side of the river and up to Ganderon and the ever-friendly Casa Fermin bar. The sun had came out and the charming chapel of St Marta at Ganderon was open.
After Ganderon, one has the choice of the river walk or the road. Definitely the river walk!
Pontevedra is a large modern city but has a super historic centre with the Iglesia de la virgen Peregrina in the centre where it is almost mandatory to get a stamp.
Dinner was at La Quesara. It was intended to be a drink and a snack, but turned into a very intense cheese experience. There was a nice multi-national party of pilgrims on the next table who also ended up munching their way through a vast amount of Galician cheese.
It's such a beautiful city!
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