León Gastronomy

León did not get its name from león the lion but from the Roman Seventh Legion that set up its fortress here to protect the gold mines in Astorga in the first century AD.  Sometime we will have to go visit the nearby Las Médulas where the Romans used hydraulic mining to wash away the soil from the mountains and retrieve the gold.

Las Medulas

Despite the real derivation of its name, León still uses the lion in its coat of arms.

León is situated on a high plain, to the east of Burgos.  After León, the mountains begin again so this is not the part of the Camino that we chose to walk, although I wish we could have visited the towns of Astorga (a Roman town founded in 14 BC as Asturica Augusta), Ponferrada (from the Latin Pons Ferrata or Iron Bridge), and Villafranca del Bierzo.

Chorizo de León

León is known gastronomically for its cured meats so Fernando can't be a vegetarian here.  He won't want to be when morcilla, lengua and manitas de cerdo appear on the menu.  The Chorizo de León is spicy with red paprika and smoked over oak wood.  We'll have to remember to take some with us for lunches when we are walking.

Then there is Botillo del Bierzo, which I've already mentioned, as being the caecum of a pig stuffed with miscellaneous parts, including bones, so that is something that is not picnic food but that one has to sit down to and that is served hot.  Plus it wouldn't fit in my little 16 liter  Gregory Maya backpack.

Lengua Curada

Then there is Lengua Curada or cured tongue which can be served "loncheada" with aceite.  I'm assuming this means sliced thinly (as for "lunches") and dressed with olive oil because the tongue is not very fatty and dries out.  There is also stewed lengua on the menus or we could get a "surtida" with an assortment of cured meats, because of course we have to order some morcilla (blood sausage) for Fernando.  The restaurant La Poveda has an extensive list of animal parts in its "raciones" or tapas menu, some of which I will have to Google to discover what they actually are before we get there.  Like mollejas de lechazo, which are sweetbreads of a young lamb, chipirones (squid), ajetes (young garlic), oricios (sea urchin), necoras (small crabs), and one we'll definitely have to try: percebes or goose barnacles.

Pimientos del Bierzo

I, of course, might opt out of most of the meats so that I can concentrate on the pimientos del Bierzo -- Valle del Bierzo being west of León --  and the pimiento morrón de Fresno de la Vega, Fresno de la Vega being just south of León.  I'm afraid I'll have to settle for canned ones since May isn't exactly the season for peppers.  Maybe we should have planned the Camino for September when there are more harvest festivals.  If we stay in private hostales and pensiones and hotels we shouldn't have to worry about the end-of-the-season bedbugs.  Maybe next time!

Cocido Maragato

What other vegetable options are there in León?  In Pamplona they had a number of tapas with berenjena that were very good so I am hoping there might be a couple of eggplant tapas in León.  Alubias and other beans are popular in the region -- essentially anything that can be cooked into a hearty stew with meat.  One such stew is Cocido Maragato from Astorga which features berza (that broccoli raab type of green), garbanzos and seven to twelve meats (what did you expect?).  The meat is served first, then the garbanzos, and last the soup.  All cocidos seem to be composed of garbanzos and meat.  Then there is the Olla Berciana which appears to be the same thing from the photos, only it is what they eat in Bierza.

And I suppose there is always the Menestra de Verduras, that overcooked vegetable stew.  Did you know that you can buy the vegetables frozen in a bag so all you have to do is add water and meat?  If we had an apartment we could make our own undercooked version without the meat.

I am always on the lookout for a version that is fresh and green but I was a bit surprised to find out that in 1994 the famous Catalan chef, Ferran Adrià of elBulli, deconstructed the menestra into what you see on the left.  What do you think?  I'm afraid he has had no influence whatsoever on the Spanish cooking of the menestra.

Getting the Right Day Pack

Osprey Tempest 20

I decided to exchange the 20 liter Osprey Tempest backpack for a Gregory Maya 16 liter.  Fernando's Gregory Miwok backpack is a better size at 18 liters but mine is supposed to fit a woman better, although the Tempest was supposedly made for a woman and it rubbed on my hips, which is why I exchanged it.  That and the fact that some of the outside pockets of the Tempest are made of a lycra netting that I know will deteriorate with age, just like swimsuits, and that are not waterproof, and I know we will get rain on the Camino.  There were a few things in addition to the size that I appreciated on the Tempest.  You can adjust the size of it, making it longer or shorter depending on your size.  The zippers are covered and seem to slide more easily than those of  the Gregory, except for those side pockets on the waist belt that are hard to reach and unzip on the Tempest.  Plus I like the location of the inner zippered pocket in the larger zippered compartment on the Tempest rather than up on top in the smaller compartment on the Gregory.

Gregory Maya 16

But 16 liters isn't much and it's a tight fit for my windbreaker, long-sleeved shirt, fleece jacket and a purse.  It's surprising how much more easily they fit into Fernando's 18 liter pack since it is wider.  So now I have second thoughts about the Maya 16.  Penny has the pink version of it and she also uses it as a hydration pack but I'm not that fond of drinking out of a tube, although Lord knows I should be drinking more water.  Plus Lord also knows that I pick up more along the way than Penny does so I really need extra room for storing various oddities.  In short I am now comparing the woman's Maya 16 with the man's Miwok 18, trying to discover what the big difference is.

Gregory Miwok 18

The broad part of the man's shoulder straps are slightly wider and about 3 inches longer so that they don't fit as well over a woman's chest, although I like the feel of the man's waistband better, since it doesn't ride up as high as the woman's and sits more at what I consider my waist.  I'm surprised that Gregory doesn't give the option of being able to lengthen the pack like the Osprey Tempest does since Gregory does offer that feature on their larger packs.

Gregory Miwok 18
in Tropic Orange

Fortunately my MacBook Air laptop fits into the Maya 16 ok, although I don't have plans to take it on this trip.  I'll write down my blog entries in a couple of little moleskine notebooks and then type them up when I get home.  Maybe I'll just learn to live with a smaller pack and make Fernando carry the lunches, the ibuprofen, the first aid kit, the compass, the tissues, the pocket knife, and the thousand other miscellaneous items that usually fit into the woman's purse.  Unless, that is, I decide to order a Miwok 18 in Tropic Orange...

Packing List for the Camino

I'm looking around for my packing list from 2007.  I'm sure I made one...  It isn't on the blog and it wouldn't be on my laptop since I didn't get that until 2011 when we went to Paris.  I can't find it on my big mac either so I dug out my plastic ziplock bag of moleskine journals, memorabilia, and receipts in the hopes that maybe I would have jotted it down there.  You'd think that I would at least have taken a photo of the backpack with its contents like every other pilgrim on the Camino has done.

Let's see if I can recreate the list of items from memory and photos.  We won't  be taking the lightweight 1 pound sleeping bag and the microfiber towel this time since we'll be staying in hotels and not albergues.  The following things worked pretty well in 2007 so I'll probably take the same stuff.

2 quick dry polyester T-shirts (which I still have)
1 long sleeve Ex-Officio polyester shirt (ditto)
1 pair REI terracotta hiking pants (ditto)
1 pair khaki hiking pants (which I still have but don't fit into -- yet)
1 REI fleece jacket (which I still have)
1 Sierra Designs windbreaker/rain jacket (ditto)
1 lightweight fleece pullover and 1 lightweight fleece pants - for sleeping in albergues
3 pairs nylon underpants (I use them as washcloths to wash them but, no, these won't be the ones from 2007.)
2 bras
3 pairs wool socks
2 pairs sock liners
1 pair Lowa hiking boots (the 2007 ones)
1 pair Keen shoes (I've gone through that pair and many others) - which I'll replace with Keen sandals.
1 purse (which I still have somewhere but I'll take a smaller one)
1 rabbitwool sun hat (which I still have but it has shrunk)
1 pair sunglasses
Several moleskine tiny journals for writing down the day's events.

So, does my list look like this photo?  This time I better post one here.

Fernando is discouraging me from taking the laptop and I suppose he is right: the point of the Camino is to disconnect from everyday life.  Ahhh...but we will still have our iPhones and most hotels we are staying in have wifi.  On the other hand, we are walking short days and will have a lot of time on our hands at the casas rurales that are out in the middle of nowhere.

Last time I also took a bunch of stuff for blisters that we never used.  So I will wait until they develop and pick up something at the local pharmacy.  The hotels/guest houses we will be staying in might provide us with shampoo but I'm not sure they'll have hairdryers.  My hair will just have to be what it is, or maybe I can get a "Buff" to cover it up, which seems to be all the rage with the Europeans.  The Buff was developed by a Spaniard for riding motorcycles on the backroads of Catalonia so perhaps I can pick up one in Leon or Sarria.

For more Camino packing tips, check out the "See You Soon, Mom" video on Youtube.

Returning from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid

We should try to book this before we go so we are sure to get back to Madrid on May 13th, in time for our flight home on the 14th.  RailEurope.com doesn't let you book trips in Spain more than 60 days in advance.  RyanAir quotes us a price of 25.29 euros and has flights at 8:15 and 22:20, neither times the best, although the 8:15 am flight is cheaper at 22.61 euros, paid with a debit card or 23.11 with a credit card.  It says that the fare is 10.99€ and the Spanish airport taxes are 11.62€.  Iberia charges $174 so it's not in the running.

I'd actually prefer the train or bus so I could see the countryside and have the time to decompress before flying over what we walked in 2 seconds.  However, I was looking at the bus schedule at ALSA and all the trips take 8-10 hours!!  It goes up to Coruna and has 20 stops so scratch that!  But there are 7 buses a day so in case another form of transportation gets cancelled hopefully we could still take the bus.

There are three trains to Madrid from Santiago, one at 9:05am, one at 5:05pm and then an overnight trenhotel that leaves at 10:33 pm and gets into Madrid at 8:02.  The day trains take about 6 hours so we'd take the earlier one at 9:05am and arrive at 2:56pm.  At 54.20 € it's more than RyanAir but we'd get to see the countryside.  It looks like we will have to think about this.

More Blogs on Sarria to Santiago

I'll use this posting as a place to store other pilgrims' postings on our section since I can never remember where I read or saw what and I often can't get back to what I've seen before.

Sarria to Ferreiros

The Huffington Post had an article on the Camino last year: "4 Things You Should Know Before Hiking Spain's Camino Trail" and linked to a blog by a woman from Mariposa, California.  Sarria to Ferreiros was her day 42 so she was more seasoned than we will be.  But her photos from June undoubtedly portray what we will experience a month before in May, including the terrain, the rain and overcast skies.  Fortunately she has an index to her 47 daily posts by stage.  Her are the ones that pertain to us (after Ferreiros).  The photos are hers.

Santiago de Compostela

1. Ferreiros to Ventas de Naron (22.4 km)
2. Ventas de Naron to Melide (26.2 km)
3. Melide to Arzua (14.3 km)
4. Arzua to Pedrouzo 
5. Pedrouzo to Santiago (20 km)

The author of the blog also got tired of colorless and monotonous food, like the dishes in this photo she took.

Ah well, I suppose anything tastes good after a day of walking.  We will be sure to fully document our diet on the road.  I might be eating a lot of ensaladas mixtas, until I get sick of canned tuna...

A Preview of the Walk from Other Pilgrims

It's always nice to find someone else who has done a blog on the same stretch of Camino we're following.  Pam and Jeff walked the whole route and here are links to various postings on the section from Sarria to Santiago.  They also went in May like we are but most of the blog is photos rather than commentary.

Samos to Portomarin - Pat and Jeff stop for the night in Sarria where an average of 400 pilgrims a day set off for Santiago.  We will be among them...  Although pulpo is a famous dish in Melide, evidently Sarria and every other place in Galicia also offer octopus.

Portomarín to Arzúa - Pam and Jeff stopped at night in Palas de Rei and Melide.  It was foggy in the morning and there were lots of pilgrims on the trail with them.  When they left Palas de Rei they decided to leave a little later, at 8:30 am, and so avoided many of the pilgrims who had left earlier.  Since we have reservations for lodging and are not walking far, we can afford a late start as well.  They also noted that Sunday is chocolate con churros day, at least in Melide.

Arzúa to Santiago: Pam and Jeff walked 19 kilometers from Arzúa to Pedrouzo (Arco do Pino) before it started drizzling. The next day it rained and they walked the 20 kilometers to Santiago. We are going earlier in May so we should expect rain some time. We just hope it's not all the time.  And then after a rainy day in Santiago, they left for the 90K walk to Finisterre!  We'll save that for another time.  Pam and Jeff have walked multiple caminos in Spain and we'll make sure we check them out when we go on the Camino Portugues along the coastal route.

It would have been nice if Pam and Jeff had included more commentary but their photos let me discover new things, like Limonada Leonesa, a type of sangria (not lemonade) in Leon for which they even have a festival, with tapas of course.  It is made with red wine, lemons, sugar and cinnamon and is a typical beverage of Semana Santa.  When they say they are going to "matar judios" they mean that they are going to drink limonada.  You'd think that being on the Camino they would have said "matar moros".  Things can be very politically incorrect on the Camino but most pilgrims no longer think that way.  At least I don't think they do...

What else?  Well Botillo is a product of Bierzo, which is between Sarria and Leon so technically we aren't going there but hopefully we'll be able to find it in Sarria or Leon.  Fernando would love botillo because it is meat-stuffed pork intestine.  What's the difference between that and salami??   It's larger so maybe it is made from the large intestine?  or stomach?  Here's a youtube video about the Botillo de Bierzo.

Gaudi's episcopal palace

What else?  Astorga has cheese and chocolate (a combination dear to Fernando's heart) but again, it is between Leon and Sarria so we will miss it.  At the beginning of May they have a cheese festival -- maybe we should be going there instead of to Leon?  They also have an episcopal palace by Gaudi, that was never popular with the locals, him being from Barcelona, using Catalan workers.  Too bad we aren't walking to Santiago from Leon.  Maybe next time.

A bit more on grelos, those cruciferous greens that go into the Caldo Gallego and have variously been translated as broccoli raab and turnip tops.  The official Spanish food marketing site translates grelos as "parsnip tops" on their web page on Galician gastronomy.  They are probably something completely independent.  If you can read Spanish, here's an article entitled: Do you know what grelos are? in which the author says "Es una verdura de sabor muy fuerte y peculiar".

Although dating from the 1960s,
Portomarin is not without charm.

Here's another blog account of the last stage from Sarria to Santiago by Raul Pino.   As with all blogs, the latest post is first so you have to go to the bottom of the page to get to the first day from Sarria, and then read backwards.  His photos and commentary are quite good and give you an idea of the terrain and the variety of paths you will be walking on.  And as with all pilgrims, his mind is on food and he stops in Melide on the 4th day to try the pulpo.  He says that even if you are in the middle of nowhere, you are not too far away from an eatery.

To make it easier, here are his postings of the stages:

1. Sarria to Barbadelo
2. Barbadelo to Portomarin
3. Portomarin to Palas de Rei 
4. Palas de Rei to Boente
5. Boente to Salceda 
6. Salceda to Lavacolla
7. Lavacolla to Santiago

Did you lose weight on the Camino??

We aren't anticipating that.  We'll be lucky if we maintain our current over-weights since we chose the "easy walking" option of 9-16 kilometers a day (OK so the last day is 19) which will leave us plenty of time to ferret out sustenance on the road.  Let's just hope that the village bars on the Camino don't have too many delicious tapas.

Mercado de Abastos

Starting at our destination, here are some mentions of food and restaurants in Santiago.  First on the list is the Mercado de Abastos - that's according to CaminoWays, which says it is "the city’s second most visited attraction after the cathedral and a must-see for food lovers" and where we can find "all quintessential Galician products such as Padrón peppers, octopus, salted cod, goose neck barnacles, savoury pies (empanada) and more."  Unfortunately we are staying in a simple pension and not an apartment where we could cook those barnacles, although maybe it would be better to let someone who knows how to cook them.  Hopefully they will have food stands selling prepared dishes, like Cociña María.  There's a trendy place there: Abastos 2.0 with a fixed price lunch menu but I don't know if we'll have time for lunch. The mercado is open Monday to Saturday, from 7am until 3pm.

Rua do Franco

Rúa do Franco, south of the Cathedral, is called the "wine trail" and is knows for its bars and tapas.  One of its restaurants, El Pasaje, has a website where you can peruse their menu (with prices) for all the typical dishes.  And here's A Taberna do Bispo which looks like it has tapas as good as those in Pamplona, along with the tourists.  An article in the Irish Independent mentions a cafeteria called Café Casino for a bowl of Galician soup and they have other typical soups and tapas under their "entrantes and raciones".  And there's A Curtidoria with a Menu del Dia for 12 euros.  All these are from the Google map of Santiago so who knows how they will be but at least they will give us an idea of what is "on offer".

There's an older couple, Pam and Jeff, who took two months to do the Camino Aragones from Jaca near Barcelona to Santiago.  Naturally they walked longer days than we will (we're wimps) and ate a lot and have a page on Camino por Comida where we can check out all the specialties of each region.

Pam and Jeff having a bocadillo en el campo.

Food on the Camino

Menestra de Verduras

Now that we've signed up for the easy walking of the last section of the Camino Frances from Sarria to Santiago with CaminoWays, I can concentrate on the important stuff like food.  I don't expect cutting edge gourmet food on this trip but at least I hope it will be interesting, although by now I know to expect the Menestra de Verduras to be overcooked.

Tapas in Pamplona

I like to know the characteristic dishes of a region so that I can be on the lookout for them.  That's not to say I won't be disappointed, as I was with the suckling pig in Estella, whose crispy skin was like eating plastic.  I do remember that perhaps the most memorable meal was in the village of Uterga, a day's hike from Pamplona.  We stayed at a private hostel (there were no other commercial establishments in town) and the dinner was a delight -- or maybe we were just awfully hungry.

Bodegon Sarria in Pamplona

And of course there were those wonderful tapas at the bars in Pamplona and Logroño.  And those buttery grilled croissants for breakfast along with café con leche every morning that made up for the lack of a big breakfast buffet to get us going.

Tarta de Santiago

Most of the places along our route this time are very small except for León (131,680) and Santiago de Compostela (95,671).  The Camino goes through the remote hills of Galicia which are not very populated or prosperous.  They say many of the Gallegos emigrated to Buenos Aires to escape this hard-scrabble existence (that's how Argentina got their empanadas).  This means that the countryside will be picturesque but there won't be many mercados for me to visit.  If I'm lucky there will be a few supermarkets in the larger towns of Sarria (pop. 13,700), Portomarín (1,690), Palas de Rei (3,656), Melide (7,502), Arzúa (6,315) and A Rúa (4,695).

Shellfish in Santiago

According to Trip Advisor, typical Galician dishes are Pulpo a la Feira (octopus), Salpicon de Mariscos (seafood salad), Caldo Gallego (like Caldo Verde with grelos which is broccoli raab), Empanada Gallega (stuffed with seafood or meat), Queso Tetilla (titty cheese), Tarta de Santiago (St. James Almond Cake), and Albariño white wine.  The town of Melide is also famous for its pulpo even though it is in the hills of Galicia and not on the coast (next time we will have to take the Portuguese coastal camino).  Hopefully we won't be too far away from Padrón (southwest of Santiago) to find their hot peppers on the tapas menus.  CaminoWays also has a list of the 10 Most Delicious Galician Dishes that we can check off as we eat them.

As for wine, there is the white Albariño from the coast and Mencia is a red wine that is grown in eastern Galicia towards Leon.  The region around Rua also produces white wines.  We'll just drink the table wine and hope it is local.  And then there is always cidra...

CaminoWays is supposed to be putting us up in casas rurales for the intermediate easy walking stops and they are known for their "exceptional food".  At the standard hotels I think we get the Pilgrim Menu, which can be of variable quality.  I will let you know how they turn out.

The Possible Scenario for the Camino

We are beginning to relent and let ourselves be pampered by having CaminoWays do all the reservations and luggage transport, especially if we want to stop midway between the stages.  Fernando says it's supposed to be a vacation, not a penance.

Day 1 (Thurs April 30): Flight to Madrid from Pittsburgh via Philadelphia
Day 2 (Fri May 1):   

• Arrive Madrid 8:20 am.  
• Take the Pink Metro Line 8 to Nuevos Ministerios; switch to the Blue Metro Line 10 towards the Charmartin Train Station (37 minutes total).  
• Take the 2:40 train to Leon or switch to an earlier train (10:30, 11:05) depending on when we land. 
• Check into Hotel El Rincón del Conde (118.80€ for 2 nights)  on a pedestrianized street in the Barrio Humedo in the city center with wifi and private bath.

Day 3 (Sat May 2): Leon
Day 4 (Sun May 3): Leave Leon and take the buses to Sarria.

Begin walking.  The hours are based on 30 min and 20 min miles.

Day 5 (Mon May 4):  Walk to Morgade (11 km/6.6 miles) (2.2-3.3 hours)
Day 6 (Tues May 5): Walk to PortoMarin (9 km/5.4 miles)
Day 7 (Wed May 6): Walk to Ventas de Naron (11 km/6.6 miles) (2.2-3.3 hours)
Day 8 (Thu. May 7): Walk to Palas de Rei (11 km/6.6 miles) (2.2-3.3 hours)
Day 9 (Fri. May 8): Walk to Melide (14 km/8.4 miles) (1.8-4.2 hours)
Day 10 (Sat. May 9): Walk to Arzua (14 km/8.4 miles) (1.8-4.2 hours)
Day 11 (Sun. May 10): Walk to Rua (16 km/9.6 miles) (3.2-4.8 hours)
Day 12 (Mon. May 11): Walk to Santiago (19 km/11.4 miles) (3.8-5.7 hours)

You can see that there is very little time spent walking so I'm wondering if we won't have a lot of time on our hands with nothing to do.  In 2007 we had one very short day from Uterga to Puente La Reina of 10.1 kilometers.  Fortunately we could explore the town but there is no town to explore in Morgade or Ventas de Naron.

Day 13 (Tues. May 12): Santiago. Check out of the CaminoWays hotel and check  into Pension Acibeche
Day 14 (Wed. May 13): Return to Madrid.  Check into Hotel Clement Barajas (62€)
Day 15 (Thurs. May 14): Flight to Charlotte 12:35 pm.  Arrive 3:51 pm.  Flight to Pittsburgh 10:09 pm.  Arrive 11:26 pm.

Designing our own itinerary for the Camino

Could we save a bundle by making our own reservations?  And by roughing it?  I was hoping to get an updated edition of John Brierley's A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago but the new 2015 edition doesn't come out until March 17th.  I ordered it but we'll have to make up our minds before then.

Sarria:
CaminoWays Hotel: Alfonso IX
Are we up for an albergue for one night?  How about Albergue Monasterio de La Magdalena?  Check out the photos.  We can make reservations online.  $11 apiece.

Morgade:
CaminoWays: Casa O Foilebar, a casa rural in Paradela which is 8 km south of Portomarin and that we have to take a taxi to get to.
Casa Morgade Tel: 982.53.12.50

Portomarin:
Concello de Portomarin:  List of accommodations (more than 20)
Albergue Ferramenteiro.  Bunks in huge dorm.  Reservations online.
Albergue-Pension Ultreia.  Private rooms or bunks in small rooms. Phone: 0034 982 545 067.  email: info@ultreiaportomarin.com
CaminoWays: Pousada de Portomarin

Ventas de Naron:
CaminoWays: Pazo de Ludeiro Turismo Rural This casa rural also appears to be well off the Camino so I'll have to ask how we get there.

Palas de Rei:
CaminoWays: Complejo la Cabana  (69€) Looks interesting.
There don't seem to be as many lodging options in Palas de Rei as in Portomarin.

Melide:
CaminoWays: Hotel Carlos 96

Arzua (Ribadiso):
CaminoWays: Casa Teodora Pension  This is on the Camino and looks nice.

Rua:
CaminoWays: O Acivro, Casa Rural

Lavacolla:
CaminoWays: Ruta Jacobeo  I'm afraid there is nothing charming about this hotel near the airport.  $80.

Santiago de Compostela:
CaminoWays: Hospedería San Martín Pinario 300€ (ouch!) No wonder CaminoWays is expensive.
Hostal Suso 40-49€  Ok.  It's not in an historic building but it is inexpensive.
Seminario Menor (albergue) online reservations.  It has single beds in dorms rather than bunks.
Hostel Via Lucia  offers double rooms with bathrooms.  But the rate of 175 euros doesn't make any sense.

Luggage Transfer Service:
When we walked from Estella to Los Arcos in 2007 we used JacoTrans luggage service, which offers services along the entire Camino Frances, including from Sarria to Santiago.  They have a guide to lodging that they service from Leon to Santiago and they charge 7€ per bag.  The Road To Santiago has a list of other luggage transfer services but JacoTrans seems to fit the bill for our route.

Camino Ways

Camino Ways is an Irish company that books hotels for you and carries your luggage on the Camino.  I asked for a quote for our trip (since it is the High Season in May) and they sent me the schedule for the 10 night easy walk version.  That might take too much time out of our 13 nights in Spain if we wanted to spend some time in Leon and Santiago de Compostela.

In	Out	Nights	Pax	Twin	Stage	Meals	Luggage Transfer	Comment	Km	Accommodation First choice depending on availability.
03-May	04-May	1	2	1	Sarria	B	No	Check-in		Alfonso IX 3*
04-May	05-May	1	2	1	Morgade	BD	Yes	Walking	11	O'Foilebar GH
05-May	06-May	1	2	1	Portomarin	BD	Yes	Walking	9	Pousada de Portomarin 3*
06-May	07-May	1	2	1	Ventas de Naron	BD	Yes	Walking	11	Pazo de ludeiro GH
07-May	08-May	1	2	1	Palas do Rei	BD	Yes	Walking	11	Complejo la Cabana 3*
08-May	09-May	1	2	1	Melide	BD	Yes	Walking	14	Carlos 96
09-May	10-May	1	2	1	Arzua	BD	Yes	Walking	14	Teodora
10-May	11-May	1	2	1	Rua	BD	Yes	Walking	16	Casa de Acivro GH
11-May	12-May	1	2	1	Lavacolla	BD	Yes	Walking	10	Ruta Jacobea 3*
12-May	13-May	1	2	1	Santiago de C.	B	Yes	Walking	9	Hospederia San Martin Pinario 3*

Nine kilometers is only 5 1/2 miles or a couple of hours walking so maybe this is too easy for us.  We might get bored with nothing to do in a small village, and we found in 2007 that there often is nothing in these small towns, not even stores, although at this stage of the Camino there should be more.  I don't like the idea of 3* hotels -- 2* are more in keeping with my plebeian spirit and even that should shame us when the rest of the pilgrims are in dormitory bunks.  However, I do like a good night's sleep, clean sheets and our own bathroom, not to mention the security of knowing we've got a place to sleep at night, especially since we will be among the slower walkers and will arrive later than most pilgrims.

I guess we should go on a trial 20 kilometer (12 mile) walk to see how hard it really is for us.  I had no problems in 2007 but that was 8 years ago.  Fortunately if they carry our luggage for us we don't have to worry about heavy backpacks.

Getting to Sarria

We arrive in Madrid on May 1st (why do we always choose International Labor Day to begin our travels?).  In 2007 we took a very pleasant train ride from Madrid to Pamplona.  We hope to do the same to Leon this time and then we'll take a bus to Sarria, which is proving to be more complicated (sort of like the one bus a day - at 5 pm - from Pamplona to Roncesvalles). 

Renfe offers Alvia and Intercity trains from Madrid's Charmartin station to Leon that take about 3 hours.  The Alvia costs 45.30€ and the Intercity 37€.  We are scheduled to arrive in Madrid at 8:20 am but it is on US Airways so that could mean 11:20 am.  We'll have to get from the Barajas airport to the Charmartin train station so that might be another hour.  There are trains at: 10:30, 11:05, 14:40, 17:05, 19:00, 20:30.  Needless to say, we should have a hotel reservation in Leon since it is a holiday.  And we better make train reservations as well, perhaps on RailEurope.com.

Then to get to Sarria, it appears we will have to take a bus from Leon to Lugo on ALSA, and then take a different bus company, MonBus, from Lugo to Sarria.  There are two nonstop buses from Leon to Lugo that appear to run every day:  10:15 am (arriving at 13:30) and 16:30 pm (arriving at 20:15pm).  Obviously we would take the morning bus.  The fare is 17.54€ apiece.

The trip from Lugo to Sarria is much shorter, only 35 minutes, and there are 13 buses a day on weekdays.  There are buses at 13:45, 14:45, 15:20, 17:30, 18:35 (I might as well get used to that 24 hour clock).  So if everything ran on schedule, we could take the 10:15 bus from Leon to Lugo and then the 13:45 bus to Sarria, and if we missed that there's the 14:45 bus.  However, if we went on Sunday, there are fewer buses: if we missed the 13:45 bus, we'd have to wait until 18:35 for the next one.  The fare is 3.70€ apiece.  Monbus doesn't seem to service Leon, although it goes to Madrid, Barcelona, Burgos and many other cities.

How much did we plan ahead in 2007?  I know we bought our train tickets online and then were able to change them to an earlier train at the station.  But that wasn't May 1st.

Camino here we come!

We bit the bullet this morning and used our AAdvantage miles to book the trip to Madrid.  We'll be walking the first two weeks of May like we did in 2007 but we won't start walking on May 1st.  Instead we'll make sure that we have hotel accommodations for May 1st.  Now we have to decide whether we are going to book the accommodations on our own or go the easier and more expensive way of having a company, like Camino Ways, do it for us.  And we will pray fervently that it doesn't rain in rainy Galicia the two weeks we are there.  No, the rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plains but on the hills of Galicia.

Although we won't be starting in Leon, we'd like to spend some time there before the trip.  Then we can take the bus to Sarria for the last 100 km that we need to walk for our "compostela".  That should take six days if we follow this itinerary from Camino Ways:

1. Sarria to Portomarín - 22km (13.2 miles) 
2. Portomarín to Palas de Rei - 22 km (13.2 miles)
3. Palas de Rei to Melide - 15 km (9 miles)
4. Melide to Arzúa - 13 km (7.8 miles)
5. Arzúa to Amenal - 23 km (13.8 miles)
6. Amenal to Santiago - 14 km (8.4 miles)

Edibles

Susan picked up an edible Ojai and Ventura County at the Ventura Farmers' Market and, golly, it's been a while since I perused their publications, and now they have Ventura county as part of the first edible publication from Ojai, with "Fillmore" on the front in tiny letters.  I see that Edible Allegheny is still around (I should subscribe so they don't fold like edible D.C. did -- although now I see that it is up and running again).  They are nice magazines to peruse now and then so you can see what food you should look for when you visit a place, and the photos can be lovely.

For instance, edible Queens has lovely photos of a featured Neighborhood Deli: Morscher’s Pork Store in Ridgewood.  Why, it looks even more interesting than that cheese store in Trastevere and I bet it smells absolutely fantastic!  Look at those sausages!  and they have more than one variety of headcheese.

Sometimes it is hard to know what town the magazine covers unless you are from the region, like edible East End (but then they have a lot of articles on latkes so you can figure it out), or Pioneer Valley (is that like Fillmore's Heritage Valley?), or Front Range, or Nutmeg, or South Shore, or even Door and Allegheny because who is familiar with counties?  And then there is edible WOW...  Detroit and Ann Arbor?  but what does W.O.W. stand for?  Wide Open West???

Are they yuppie publications?  You bet.  Just like Slow Food.  But every so often you run across something interesting that you didn't know before.

Walking from Malibu to Mexico

Mother sent me back to the house with 3 new Sunset magazines, one of which featured a trek from Newport Beach to San Clemente with the author of a walkabout guide: Walkabout Malibu to Mexico: Hiking Inn to Inn on the Southern California Coast.  The author, Tom Courtney, is my age, a retired UC Berkeley professor, and has written a previous book on walking Northern California.  He's gotten a lot of local press and even a recent blurb in a New York Times blog but I haven't heard about Walkabout California that I can remember.

Naturally, the inns are not the 10 euro albergues that you find on the Camino but most of the ones Sunset lists are below $200 and I wonder if you couldn't find cheaper dives by the beach.  A query about cheaper accommodations on the walkabout forum got this reply: "There are hostels and Motel 6 along the way....and there's always airbnb."

Obviously there will be a lot of stairs as you walk up and down the cliffs by the beach so it might be a little hard on the knees.  You can buy digital sections of the guide online or download a complete digital version (pdf or kindle editions).  Maybe Juan and Mandy would like to try the 5-day La Jolla to Mexico stretch sometime, although I know that they would much prefer a cruise or lolling on the beach.

I hope that soon Courtney will come out with a Walkabout Central California since he only reaches Monterey in the Northern California volume and starts at Malibu in the Southern California volume.

Our Walking Record on the Camino

I want to be realistic about how far we can walk each day.  In 2007, when we were 8 years younger, this was our mileage (granted Fernando had major foot problems):
Roncesvalles to Zubiri (rocky, muddy and in the rain): 22.2 km or 13 1/3 miles.
Pamplona to Uterga: 16.8 km (10 miles). (up over a mountain)
Uterga to Puente la Reina: 10.1 km (6 miles). (very easy)
Estella to Los Arcos: 22.7 km (13.6 miles) - without pack this was most enjoyable
Los Arcos to Viana: 19 km (11.4 miles)

If we can keep it at 20 km without packs, we should do OK, as long as we start out early or have reservations at each refugio/hostal so we don't arrive at our destination with no place to stay, like we did at the beginning of our Camino in 2007.  We won't start out on May 1st and we will have reservations for that day, which means we need to carry a cell phone.  One that works.  The following is assuming a 3 mph walk.  Let's also assume a 2.5 mph walk, but no less than that!

1.  Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo: 23.7 km (14.22 miles) (4.74 hours) (5.69 hours)
2.  Villafranca to Vega del Valcarce: 19.7 km (11.82 miles) (3.94 hours) (4.73 hours)
3.  Vega del Valcarce to O Cebreiro: 11.2 km (6.72 miles) (2.24 hours) (2.69 hours)
4.  O Cebreiro to Triacastela: 20.7 km (12.42 miles) (4.14 hours) (4.97 hours)
5.  Triacastela to Sarria: 25 km (15 miles) (5 hours) (6 hours)
6.  Sarria to PortoMarin: 22.9 km (13.74 miles) (4.58 hours) (5.5 hours)
7.  Portomarin to Palas de Rei: 26.1 km (15.66 miles) (5.22 hours) (6.26 hours)
8.  Palas de Rei to Melide: 15.3 km (9.18 miles) (3.06 hours) (3.67 hours)
9.  Melide to Arzua: 14.1 km (8.46 miles) (2.82 hours) (3.38)
10. Arzua to Pedrouzo (Arca do Pino): 19.2 km (11.2 miles) (3.84 hours) (4.48 hours)
11. Pedrouzo (Arca do Pino) to Santiago: 20.6 km (12.36 miles (4.12 hours) (4.94 hours)

So that is 11 days of easy walking, more or less.  In 2007 we used the luggage transfer service Jacotrans from Estella to Los Arcos.  The Leon office has a list of albergues/hostales from which they pick up luggage.  I'll have to check them out, although the idea of making reservations in advance makes me uneasy.  What if we don't make it to our destination???

Planning for the Last Stages of the Camino

How to break up the walk into manageable portions.  This isn't very interesting reading but is my scratch pad.

I'm looking at the first (and still most appealing) book I bought about the Camino when we went to Barcelona in 1999: El Camino de Santiago a Pie.  The stages they recommend for starting in Ponferrada (our first stage), with the mileage and hours, follow, with the original numbering from Roncesvalles.  They may have chosen the various villages to stop in because they have refugios/albergues  and because they wanted to complete the entire Camino from the French Border in a month.  There are more accommodations available now and we are also in no hurry to get to Santiago so we can split up the days or choose to stay in other locations.  We just have to make sure that there are accommodations available.

22. Ponferrada (205.4 km to Santiago) to Villafranca del Bierzo: 22.5 km; 5 1/2 hours.  Evidently an easy day as it is marked with one boot.  (183 km left)
23. Villafranca del Bierzo to O Cebreiro: 30 km; 8 1/2 hours; 3 boots. (153 km left)
24.  O Cebreiro to Triacastela: 20.5 km; 5 hours; 1 boot. (132.4 km left)
25.  Triacastela to Barbadelo: 22.9 km; 5 1/2 hours; 1 boot. (109.5 km left)
26.  Barbadelo to Gonzar: 25.3 km; 7 hours; 2 boots. (84.2 km left)
27.  Gonzar to Melide: 31.7 km; 8 hours; 3 boots.  (52.5 km left)
28.  Melide to Pedrouzo/Arca: 32.4 km; 8 hours; 2 boots.  (20.1 km left)
29.  Pedrouzo/Arca to Santiago: 20.1 km; 5 hours; 1 boot.

John Brierly in A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago (2006) breaks it up differently, staying in a town before Ponferrada, Molinaseca, which would increase our first day's kilometrage to 30.7 km (19.1 miles), not something I would do.  Brierly also says there is much to see in Ponferrada (including the Templar castle), a town of 60,000 which gets its name from the iron bridge that was built here in the 11th century.  Its tourist office has lists of hostals and guest houses in addition to the new albergue that has 185 beds.  So, changing his starting point to Ponferrada, the stages would be:

1.  Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo: 23.7 km.  Villafranca only has a population of 5,000 but it is a popular tourist venue so it has a "wide range of alternative accommodations".
2.  Villafranca del Bierzo to O Cebreiro: 30.9 km (19.2 miles).  This stage is the steepest of the whole Camino but offers stunning views of the Valcarce Valley (Vallis Carceras in Latin means narrow valley).  There are intermediate accommodations so we could break the walk in two.  O Cebreiro has also become a popular tourist venue.
3.  O Cebreiro to Triacastela: 20.7 km (12.9 miles) downhill (after a short steep climb) with tremendous views.
4.  Triacastela to Sarria via Samos: 25 km (15.5 miles).  Sarria is a bustling modern town of 12,000 with railway and bus lines.
5. Sarria to PortoMarin: 22.9 km (14.2 miles).  Portomarin is a modern town of 2,000 on the edge of a reservoir created in 1962, which flooded the original town so that the residents opted to have it relocated here.
6.  Portomarin to Palas de Rei: 26.1 km (16.2 miles).  The regular Lugo to Santiago bus stops here in case we need to quit :-).
7.  Palas de Rei to Ribadiso (Arzua): 26.4 km (16.4 miles).  Midway through this walk (15.3 km) is the town of Melide with a town of 8,000 that is known for its octopus (even though it is not on the coast!), so that would be a good additional stopping night for us.
8.  Ribadiso to Arca do Pino (Pedrouzo): 22.2 km (13.8 miles).  There are duplicate names for many of these towns, one in Spanish and the other in Galician (Gallego).  Brierly says this is the last main albergue before Santiago.
9.  Arca (Pedrouzo) to Santiago: 20.6 km (12.8 miles).

Fernando will be in no hurry and he wants to break the stages down further and start closer to Santiago and stay a few nights in Leon...  He also doesn't like the looks of O Cebreiro, but then I showed him this video and now he says "very interesting"...  Stay tuned.

Oh!  and if you want to see short video clips of the whole route from O Cebreiro to Santiago, check out https://www.youtube.com/user/XacobeoVideo.

O Cebreiro to Santiago?

O Cebreiro from the Trepidatious Traveller

I'm not completely convinced about starting our walk in this little stone village at the Galician/Leon y Castilla border, which I assume is popular because it is the first town in Galicia and more or less at the top of a mountain.  I've been reading blog posts and looking at videos about this last section of the Camino just to get an idea of what we will be up against.  My blog is my thinking pad.

The Trepidatious Traveller (60 year-old English woman living in Spain) did the whole Camino Frances from St. Jean Pied de Port with her daughter in 2013.  She was worried that as soon as she reached Sarria (a bit closer to Santiago than O Cebreiro), the way would get crowded with "day trippers" (like us) just doing the minimum required for the Compostela (certificate).  She did not find that to be the case and she did long days (25-30 km/15-18 miles), stopping later in the afternoon and was always able to find a place to stay.  She did go in May when it is less crowded and she did stay in towns that aren't the standard stopping places.

Even more reassuring are some Youtube videos from a Spanish family (father, mother and teenage daughter) that filmed parts of 9 daily stages from Ponferrada to Santiago.  They went in August, the Spanish vacation month, so it should have been the most crowded, yet in the videos the Camino doesn't look crowded at all.  In fact, the Camino looked more crowded when we were doing the Camino in 2007 from Roncesvalles to Logrono.

Shall we book the flight?  US Airways from Pittsburgh to Madrid is $1083.80/person, leaving May 5th and returning May 19th.   Or we could use our American Advantage miles, except each way, leaving April 29th and returning May 12th is 20K and we only have 70K right now.  We better hurry up and spend more money on the AA credit card!  Usually we have no problem with that...  Stay tuned!!

The Camino Portugués

I was reading The Trepidatious Traveler's blog on the Camino Portugués which runs from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela.  That route is appealing for its comparative obscurity (not as crowded), its proximity to the coast which I hope makes it less mountainous, and thus hopefully warmer.  However, since fewer people travel it, there are fewer accommodations and I'm not sure if there is a luggage transport system and that is something we would definitely want this time.  It was much more delightful walking without a 27 pound pack.

The Camino Portugués (Caminho Portugués) is 615 kilometers so it is shorter than the Camino Francés which is 800 Km from St. Jean Pied de Port.  The Trepidatious Traveler did it in 27 days while Camino Ways has a self-guided tour for 28 days.  Camino Ways divides it into 5 sections and the last section, from Tui at the Portuguese border to Santiago, is 110 kilometers.  There are some ups and downs in the last section but the highest elevation is only 255 meters at the end when you reach Santiago.  In all the Camino Portugués, the highest elevation is 472 meters.  The last 100 km of the Camino Frances has a high point of 723 meters, and if we started from O Cebreiro, at the border between Galicia and Leon, the altitude is 1300 meters but from there it is downhill followed by ups and downs of lower elevations.  Of course with mountains come views so that might make for more spectacular scenery.

Maybe we can do O Cebreiro to Santiago this year and the Camino Portugués next year.

Are we ready for the Camino again?

Stages and mileage on the Camino

It's been 7 1/2 years since we did the first stage of the Camino de Santiago in May of 2007, from Roncesvalles to Burgos, although we went by bus the last stretch from Logroño to Burgos because of Fernando's feet.  This time he will take his boots and I will make him practice beforehand.

This time Fernando also wants to end up in Santiago de Compostela so that means we need to start closer to the end, perhaps in O Cebreiro which is 159 kilometres/98 miles from Santiago.  This means going through the hills of Galicia where it often rains and means mud so we'll need to be ready for that.   Mundiplus has an itinerary from O Cebreiro to Santiago that takes 10 days.  And CaminoWays shows the elevation of the route under their "itinerary" tab from Ponferrada to Sarri (O Cebreiro is midway between them) and then from Sarri to Santiago.   It is quite hilly.  Sarri to Santiago takes 6 or 7 nights and covers the minimum 100 km required for the Compostela certificate.  The advantage to self-guided tour companies like Mundiplus and Caminoways is that they carry your luggage from hotel to hotel and include the accommodations as well as breakfast and dinner.  One happy customer said "Unlike other pilgrims, we didn’t have to carry our luggage and we didn’t have to hurry to the next town to find a place to sleep."

The disadvantage is that it comes at a price: Mundiplus charges 790 euros ($977) per person sharing a double room for its 10 day self-guided tour from O Cebreiro to Santiago.  That would be $1,580/10 or $158/day.  The Outer Banks is about $126/day for us and that doesn't include two meals and luggage transfers, so I suppose Mundiplus isn't outrageous, except that we still have to get to Spain.  And of course, we might feel a bit extravagant walking among other pilgrims who are roughing it in refugios for 10 euros a night...