El Camino Finisterre to Muxia Santiago to Negreira

El Camino Finisterre to Muxia 

Santiago to Negreira 

I had a 20 minute walk to get from my hotel back to the cathedral and then I followed El Camino Finisterre out of the city and within just 15 minutes, I was in woods and passing fields although the city was not far behind.

It is called El Camino Finisterre despite the fact that the town at the end of the trail is called Fisterra but everyone seems to use the French version of Finisterre so I will follow form and refer to it as Finisterre although I know full well that Finisterre is in Brittany. I have also seen it referred to as El Camino Irlandais as Irish pilgrims could come by ship to Muxia and walk via Finisterre which is just over the 100 kilometres requirement to obtain a credential certificate.

A view back to the cathedral across the tops of the trees of the rural area so close to the city centre. The city seems to have expanded back along other paths making for  long trek through urn am fringes but the route west has no cities or even big towns and is an absolute delight to walk.

There were plenty of mushrooms and fungi in the forests.

I was thinking that there were chicken mushrooms but then again without a positive identification, I was not about to test them. 

Nothing special about this photo but it does suggest that the bad weather in the forecast was not far away as the low cloud obscured the tops of the hills ahead.

I recognised this stretch of road  from the last time that I was here. It was over a kilometre long down hill stretch with no re-assuring way markers and if you had misread the sign back over the brow of the hill, it would be a long slog back.

But I also remembered what was coming up next. I was not sure whether it was better to know what was coming next or to be blissfully unaware. The route dog legged left and right and then followed a steep track up into the forest.

It was  gruelling climb. Every now and again the forest track met with the road that hair pinned up the slope. I was on the track for more than half an hour, climbing up, a vertical ascent of over two hundred metres and I never saw another person or heard any traffic.

There was low cloud and mist and it was hard to see very much but it also deadened any noise and except for a few bird calls, it was silent but very atmospheric.

Soon I was walking down the hill on the far side and the weather seemed to have improved. It was warm and bright with patches f blue sky.

I reached Ponte Madeira with its magnificent bridge and up stream the wire with several water mills.

The weir from the bridge.

A view of the central arch and a neighbouring arch.

Two of the three water mills, the third is on the other side of the river.

Man hole and drain covers are something that many people notice but when I crossed the border from Valenca in Portugal into Tui in Spain, the drain covers had an outline of Galicia  with the name of the region on them. After leaving Santiago de Compostela, the covers had the scallop shell motif on them, a small shell on one side and a large pictorial representation of a scallop shell covering the rest of the top of the cover.

There were plenty more horreos to see.

There are many different designs but some things are common. They are all raised off the ground by at least a metre and have an overhanging lip to defeat the vermin from gaining access to the inside. And although this particular one is missing its original cross, there is a cross at the apex above the door end of the horreos and a decorative final at the other apex.

I finally reached Negreira and my stop for the night. I checked the way out of town and one of the gates into the town.

And next to the gate was a municipality built row of more than twenty shops in the sam style as the main gate to encourage commerce, to expand the town and to provide an income although today, only two of the units are occupied.

And I saw that someone has already stolen my idea of a ruck sack on wheels but my idea is more developed. The larger wheels than some trolleys is good as it makes for a better experience and fewer jolts over rough ground. My development is for a harness around the hips with a loop at the back for a hook on a single arm from the set of wheels to slip into in order to leave the hands free. And in true Dragon Den style, you can have the idea for 60% of the company.