Day 32 - Portomarin to Palas de Rei

We had really bad internet last night in Palas de Rei as our hotel was on the outskirts of town and was a bungalow style set up.

I am sure that if we had have ventured from our room to the bar, the internet would have been fine, but we had one too many ciders on arrival in town and thought it best not to venture to the bar again.

The day was a really pleasant day. Easy walking and great temperature. 


If anything, the temperature, especially first thing in the morning, was a little chilly.

As we left Portomarin, there was a mist/fog over the river/lake, and it was not until we had scaled the neighbouring hills that we saw the blue sky and sunshine.

The crowds were still fairly large but after 90 minutes of walking we had managed to get in front of the majority of the crowd.

During the day we walked past the 80km and 70km milestones marking the distance remaining until Santiago de Compostela and at the end of the day had only 66km remaining.

We had many stops during the day for the three Cs. Coffee, Coke and Church. The problem with stopping is that you then had to continually pass the same people again 5-10 mins later.

This was actually positive as the majority of the people on the road are new Camino walkers having joined the Camino in Sarria or towns immediately before Sarria.

By passing these people several times, we became familiar to each other and the new people became friendlier. We were already friendly!!

Most of the walk was through shady forests or pastureland which made it very nice.

We saw some interesting sights, including some large things that looked like large cane baskets with a lid, some raised buildings that could have been storage facilities and some ant sculptures. All very interesting.

In Portomarin, in the restaurant at dinner, which was very nice (with the best desert in Spain so far), we met some new people who joined the Camino in Sarria. two women from Ohio, and a couple from New Zealand.

Both groups were very nice.

Once they heard us talking about the Camino, they all approached our table to ask a bunch of questions.

We have seen the two ladies from Ohio since but the older couple from New Zealand are on a slower program.

The walk from Portomarin to our hotel  at Palas de Rei was about 24km.

The hotel was on the outskirts of town as we approached Palas de Rei and at that time we were walking with our friends from Germany/Netherlands. Therefore, we continued walking into Palas de Rei to their hotel for a beer. One beer turned into five ciders after which the 1km walk uphill back to our hotel seemed a long way.

We then had a restful afternoon during which we took advantage of the fact that the hotel had a laundry that we could use. Our laundry is now up to date and, if we need to, we do not need to do laundry again until we are back in Australia. Yeh!

Tomorrow, we walk 29km to Arzua after which we only have two days of walking remaining before we reach Santiago de Compostela.