El Camino Portuguese Caldas de Reis to Padron

El Camino Portuguese 

Caldas de Reis to  Padron 

I was up early and had left by 8am.

On the outskirts of town was a chapel dedicated to its patron saint, San Roque, patron saint of dogs and pilgrims. San Roque is associated with miracle cures during the plagues that ravaged Europe in the medieval times. He caught the plaque himself but was cured by a dog who licked his woulds and brought him bread everyday. 

I passed the church of Santa Maria, nothing special about the architecture of the church but it was the cemetery that caught my eye. There were rows of identical vaults, the doors each being less than a metre square stacked four high and some of the rows stretched for more than 30 vaults, row after row after row, facing each other with just two metres walkways between each opposing row of vaults. 

I passed a mushroom at the side of the path that must have been the size of my outstretched hand.

I walked on a little further and there was a couple with a basket picking mushrooms in the forest. Some they had picked to check the gills underneath and decided that it wasn’t one that they could positively identify and had left on the ground but the basket was filling up with all sizes and shapes. He was pleased with his crop and note the big one in the basket to the right, the size off a dinner plate.

I thanked them and had started walking away but he called me back to show me this little treasure which he said was one of the best...although he used a name I didn't recognise and couldn't identify it from the internet.

A small granary store or horreos as they are called in Galicia. I thought that it might have been a kennel but there was no dog barking from behind the fence.

I was coming down the hill into Pontecesures to cross the bridge over the Rio Ulla and it was misty but despite all the countryside and forests through which the tracks passes, there were occasional glimpses of industry such as this paper mill  belching out hopefully just steam and not smoke and pollution but it processes timber locally and provides jobs.

A glimpse of the Rio Ulla from the Camino as it descends to cross the river.

It had started to rain heavily and despite wanting to visit Padron, being the place where St James first landed and the stone pillar to which his boat was tied to lies under the altar in the local church and a replica stands on the river bank, I went straight through to get to my hotel to warm up and dry out.

I was in a lage hotel and there was only one internet connection and I never got to join...perhaps not surprising as there were five floors of rooms with more than 40 rooms on each floor and judging by those at dinner that evening, the hotel was half full and the internet must have been overloaded.