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Since Colin was so close to his home and has obviously visited Santiago many times, I decided to walk the final stretch from Bandeira to Santiago de Compostella on my own.

I took up their kind offer of dropping me off 10km closer at Pont Ulla since the full distance is 32km, a bit much for an oldie with a full rucksack, especially with no breakfast.

At Pont Ulla I was immediately confronted with a 250metre climb up the next 3km 🙁 The route I downloaded seems to be for a cyclist since I lost all arrows and markers once in the wood. However, on the descent, they started reappearing where I met an American lady who has lived in Hannover for 40 years she recommended the “Wise Pilgrim” app and it did seem pretty good.

I met many more pilgrims in the next few miles who were completing The Sanabres route all were amazed that you could walk for 7 days and only meet 1 pilgrim 🙂

After stopping for a drink at The Bar Rosende (still no food though) I didn’t see another pilgrim until Santiago and yes I was following a legit route with markers!

An excellent walk on traffic free lanes although I was getting pretty exhausted by the time I arrived at The NestStyle Hotel for my final night before returning home.

The Strava shows 21.6 km walked and an impressive 713m (2,339 feet) climbed

the day’s pics are here:

Today was Colin’s chance to display his cobbling skills to me after his shoe has been causing him so much pain, very artful it was too, certainly unlike any of my bodged jobs. See the photo for full details, I don’t think he’s applied for a patent yet!

Apparently, it did the trick at zero cost enabling him to walk with much less pain 🙂

The walking distance between Chantada and Bandeira according to my route sheet is 55km which, obviously, at our pace is way too far.  So once again we called on the services of Geoff to take us to just the other side of Lalin giving us a very pleasant 22km walk to Bandeira.

Unfortunately, we were admiring the HOXE dairy plant so much we missed the footpath turning immediately after it 🙁 thus meaning we at to walk across the Rio Dezo bridge and thus ended up on the busy N-525 road. Mistake spotted we hurried onto a minor road to rejoin the path at its other end.

We then arrived in Silleda and started debating about having our usual late lunch, unfortunately, Geoff had already left for Banderia which meant no lunch for us us. Spanish places stop serving at 4 ish and don’t open again till 8 ish 🙁

The Hostel Conda Rey in Banderia is quite basic as is the town with its overpowering smell of pig muck 🙁 In the end for dinner we ended up driving back to Silleda which for me was the most disgusting so-called Vegi pizza ever 🙁 they replaced it with some very yellow tortilla.

We ended up walking 22km with 350metres of climbing.

The pictures of the day are here:

Colin has written another excellent post on the day here https://colindavies.blogspot.com/2019/05/thoughts-from-galicia-spain-22519.html

Today should have been a long day as the Camino distance between Monforte and Chantada   is 31km. However, we are exceptionally fortunate in having a backup with Geoff driving Colins car so once again he drove us outside Monforte to the 113.3 marker stone on the LU-4106.

The route is very rural keeping me occupied updating the hamlet names on OSM every mile or so using the Go Map!! app. walking was quite slow as Colin’s foot was playing up again plus he left his hat behind at one of our many stops necessitating a dash back for me to collect it.

The drop down through the woods to Belesar from the church of San Paio de Diamondi (Interestingly the 100km point to Santiago) was fantastic although looking at the equally sharp ascent across the river made us pleased that Geoff was waiting by the river in the car especially since we hadn’t passed any open bars or shops!

After some food and checking in at Hotel Mogay we then attempted to find the Gold award winning Airas Moniz cheese farm, GMaps conveniently stuck a pin in the middle of a field which we then drove around in a series of circles 🙁 Eventually, we found some mechanics who gave us instructions. Once there whilst waiting for the cheesemaker to separate the curd & whey  I updated OSM to make sure no one suffers the same fate!

We had a quick tour, its a very small place, interesting but alas no blue cheese to take away but the sample tasted pretty good.

Strava says we walked I6.7km (but 1.2km was fetching the errant hat)and 305m of ascent.

Strava says:

The pics are here:

Here is Colin’s estimable post of the day https://colindavies.blogspot.com/2019/05/thoughts-from-galicia-21519.html

An excellent days walk on the Camino Invierno with Colin, alas poor Geoff’s Achilles tendon prevented him from joining us except for a brief encounter en route in the car and at the end. Sally will be pleased to know I really enjoyed the walking and Graham will be pleased that with Colin’s help I’m slowing down 🙂

We started walking to the famous castle in Ponferrada, meeting a constant stream of pilgrims on the over popular Camino Frances, including aircraft flying to Santiago airport, showing them the way, instead of the old fashioned Milky Way,  I stopped to correct the OSM where the original Camino is prevented from crossing the railway line.

What a joy once over the river that we turned right whereas all the pilgrims where coming from the left 🙂 We didn’t see another pilgrim all day.

The walking was superb if a little bit hilly all on very quiet roads & tracks we found a shop where the lady kindly helped us make sandwiches on her deli counter ready for us to eat at the top of the major climb. The castle looks impossible to get too, stuck very high up on a rocky promontory, but the path gracefully curves up to Villvieja where we ate our sandwiches, the track is then flanked by really ancient chestnut trees before arriving at the previously commanding Castillo de Cornatel (closed of course). We then dropped down to Borrenes to be met by Geoff with his duff Achilles tendon to finally reach the excellent looking Hotel Cornatel Medulas – the only place open since we left the shop in‎⁨ Toral de Merayo! fortunately, they offer evening dinner too with the excellent local Roandi wine 🙂

We covered the 23km (14.5 miles) with 547m (1,777 feet) of climbing at an overall average speed of 3.3km/hr ~2mph

Strava is here:

All the pictures are on Flickr here: