“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”
– Dory

We’re feeling pretty good this morning, so much so that my fellow pilgrim is even willing to pose for a “before” photo (we shall see if I’m allowed to get the applicable “after” for comparison). With her are Stickey, and L’il Stickey, who, she will tell you, have made this journey possible, especially the hill grinds. Sorry boys, this is our new family.

While there is a fair amount of distance to cover today, with the exception of a pretty steep drop to the coast at the end, the trail is a little more on the level side. It is also largely away from the road, which hasn’t always been the case (walking on a narrow shoulder while semis and busses blow by you isn’t what they show in the brochure). The scenery has been wonderful along the entire route, but today has been my favorite.

Part way into our journey, we come to a fork in the road. One path leads south to Finisterre, while the other goes north to Muxía. A road connects the two so a lot of hikers will hit them both in a loop and then walk back to Santiago de Compostela, but I get the stink eye for even thinking such a thing (how does she know?), so we take a left here and stick to the original plan. As my anti-sherpa gleefully points out here, we are also less than 30km away from our goal!

We’re perilously close to the death zone once again but, finally, we make it over the last ridge and get our first glimpse of the Atlantic. It may not look like much, but off in the distance here you can see our destination for today (a town called Corcubión), Finisterre, and way out there, the tip of the peninsula that marks km 0. Plenty of steps still in front of us, but thee is a reality now that we are actually going make.

One side benefit of long days on the trail is that, when you do finally stop to eat, everything tastes better. I suspect this isn’t actually the best hamburger in the world but I’d fight you right now if you said otherwise.

Oh, and that “after” photo? I did get it and it looks awesome!

It’s a bit messed up when a seven mile hike is a rest day, but after a couple of long grinds this is indeed a welcome change of page. It also marks hump day so, assuming we make it to Olveiroa intact, we will officially be past the mid-point of this adventure.

First the good news. We did not smell cow poop all night and, after taking out about a dozen flies with an old newspaper someone left in the nightstand (perhaps for this exact purpose), our accommodations weren’t too bad at all.

We’ve been very lucky with the weather here as the forecast was for clouds and rain pretty much every day. There were a few hours in the night that it came down quite heavy but as we make our way out of Santa Mariña, it is another great day for hiking.

Olveiroa is a pretty standard stop on this trail and there are plenty of newer albergues that have popped up to cater to weary walkers such as ourselves. Not a whole lot else though so, after checking in, we need to cab it a few miles to the nearest town for some provisions (I suggested we just walk in but didn’t get many takers).

Tomorrow we’re back at it with another thirteen miler but the end is in sight!

So may day began like this. In our hotel room are two cots. Each is covered with what I guess one might call memory foam. I say this because I am in exactly the same position I fell asleep in, depressed into a form-fitting cocoon like a high-priced figurine ready to ship from the factory. Although I may be well protected against an accidental drop, it is surprisingly uncomfortable and takes an inordinate amount of effort simply to roll up over the edge of the mattress and get my feet on the floor.

It still feels early, but we are running slightly behind the tour bus full of silver foxes, who have already descended on the breakfast spread, leaving behind a few croissants and two tomato slices. There’s a scene in the Grinch where he reaches back out of the chimney to pick up a rouge crumb that a mouse was about to eat. I look around a bit, waiting for a liver-spotted hand to snake out and grab those last tomatoes.

My trail amigo is not deterred however. A few colorful words were spoken getting up and out the door but, boots on the ground, she’s ready to go.

The route today takes us out of town on a long climb to Santa Mariña. The “standard” itinerary is to push 6 miles further to Olveiroa (20 in total), but that’s too much for us so we have split in into two stages.

If you have ever watched people climb Everest, you have seen that up in the death zone, the air is so thin that you can only take a few steps before resting to catch your breath. We’ve determined that anything past 10 miles is in the death zone for my fellow pilgrim and that, instead of bottled oxygen, the only thing that helps is a relaxing break and some lunch. Fortunately, on the Camino, you’re never really that far away from a hostel with a café. Not the healthiest choice here, but plenty of calories to power through the last few miles.

By mile 13, I feel a mutiny brewing and check the route map I installed back in Santiago. The good news is that it shows out lodging for the night a mere half mile away. The bad news is the recent review that reads:

“If you like flies and the smell of cow poop, this is your place. This albergue is next door to a factory cow farm, it stinks and flies won’t leave you alone. Beds very noisy with movement and crumbs and dirt on mattresses. Disposable sheets and pillowcases provided.”

This, I keep to myself.

Two down, three to go.

Our group is in surprisingly good spirits this morning, given that we are checking out of a luxury hotel and heading out, on foot, into the unknown. We’ve downsized our luggage into two small day packs, leaving the rest here for when we return. For $4/day, it is possible to have a shuttle service take your bags to your next stop, but we’re not quite sure how that works on the last day when you actually need to get it back to where you started. If we were going for longer we’d spend the time to figure it out but, given there are towns every few miles and places to stay every night, we’re confident we can manage with pretty limited supplies.

As with all long distance hikes, plenty of happy, optimistic pictures to kick things off – including the only know photo in existence of my trail partner with her backpack on her back – then slowly becoming fewer a further between and reality sets in and the mood becomes a little less jovial. That said, as we walk through the countryside, it is hard not to appreciate what we have the opportunity here to see.

Our first stop is in the small town of Negreira. We’re past the age where we need to crash on a bunk in a dormitory, but accommodations are the trail are still a little spartan. After 12 miles though one cares about such things a whole lot less.

I have absolutely no clue how I managed to talk my travel coordinator into this (or perhaps more accurately, why I said I would do it to look manly assuming no one would ever take me up on it and now can’t back but) but today we’re on a 7:00 AM flight to Santiago de Compostela to spend five days of our precious vacation walking some 56 miles through Galicia to Finisterre, which the Romans considered the “end of the earth”. There are so many things in things in that sentence that don’t sound like her I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Before I try though, a quick shout out to Madrid. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there and, unlike most big cities where we try to quickly tick off the key attractions and move on, there one feels a lot more like us and we can even see spending an extended period of time here somewhere down the road. That’s pretty high praise.

We’ve got a lot of moving around to do this trip and while there is a great high-speed train network here, sometimes the distances are just too far to make skipping the airport worth it. This is one of those times, as a 4+ hours train ride is only 90 minutes on a plane, albeit a little more tightly packed.

Santiago de Compostela is the end point for the Camino de Santiago, a kind of catch all for several routes covered by pilgrims making their way to worship at a shrine said to contain the relics of Saint James. Thousands of people each year hike these trails starting as much as 500 miles away in France (although most only cover the obligatory 60 miles to qualify for the official pilgrim certificate). We’re doing things a bit differently though, starting our hike here and continuing west.

Other than repositioning, we really have no set agenda for the day and take advantage of the down time to catch up on a few emails, post a blog or two, and then wander around town. The cathedral is the big attraction here as it is most people’s ultimate destination and the hub of activity. We don’t make it inside this time around but maybe when we get back in a few days.

In the meantime, my trusty sidekick, AKA T-Gran, has gotten hooked on café con leche. Never saw that coming.

As we finish up our time in Madrid, we have one last day trip planned, this time heading north to the city of Segovia. Geographically, it isn’t that far from Toledo, but where the latter seemed dry and barren, this area looks like a far better spot to set up shop. I guess I’m not the first to make that observation though as people have been calling it home since 700 BC. Around 50 BC, the Romans moved in and, as they often did, left behind some pretty incredible things.

The aqueduct here is one of the best preserved anywhere, and runs for some 10 miles up into the mountains. The double arch section right next to the old town is over 80 feet high and, until the mid 19th century, was part of the primary water supply for the city, just as it was nearly 2,000 years earlier.

A short walk brings us to the Plaza Mayor, which feels far more lively than the one was saw in Madrid. There is a much better mix here of shops and restaurants that likely accounts for part of the difference, but it is also the weekend, and this is clearly a day trip plenty of locals also take.

There is one spot in particular I am on the lookout for, Limón y Menta, as our guidebook calls it out as the place for Ponche Segoviano, a famous dessert from this region described as “a sweet sponge cake, layered with a syrupy and sticky filling inside and then covered in Marzipan before being dusted with icing sugar.”

It disappeared too fast for pictures but, rest assured, the reputation is well-deserved.

Right off the main square is the cathedral and, as always, we stopped in to check it out. Plenty of soaring arches and ornate stained glass windows of course, but the highlight may just have been the person laying down a few bars on the massive pipe organ.

If we saw nothing else we’d chalk this up as a pretty good day but, along with the aqueduct, Segovia is famous for its castle, rumored to have inspired Cinderella’s castle.

For years, the castle and surrounding area were use a military academy and much of the interior now serves as museum to showcase old armor and weapons.

Our ticket also gives us access to the tower, with great views back towards the old town and cathedral.

We have time left before our return train so decide to eat dinner in Segovia rather than waiting until Madrid. With “Piglet in the style of grandmother” and “Breaded Ear” on the menu can you really blame us?

Our travels today take us south to Toledo, a quick 45 minute train ride from Madrid (bonus points to my scheduler for the station being just a few blocks from our hotel).

Toledo has a pretty long history a religious center and any top ten lists of sights to see is likely made up most of churches, mosques, and synagogues, but the cathedral is the one most tourists come to see. We’ve seen a lot of these over the years, but I’m still amazed by the effort that would have gone into building them, particulry given the tools they had to work with at the time. Equally as impressive is the ability to put together the funding for construction, the ornate furnishings, amazing art collection, and the acres of gold leaf. Never a shortage of rich people with a guilty conscious looking to buy a ticket to heaven I suppose.

We spend the next few hours wandering aimlessly through the old town, stopping in a few shops here and there, and sitting down for a quiet lunch well off the beaten path. For some reason, it is also free museum day today (they are just small ones here so they don’t count against my new “one museum per day” rule). I don’t is that is true all over the country, but here, every time we try to hand over our money, they just push it back across the counter and hand us a ticket. Perhaps they recognize us as the influencers we are #gypsylife #adventuregirl #gotouttadodge

There is also an old castle here (now a military museum) that probably is worth a visit if we had more time, but our train back to Madrid beckons.

We learned this lesson in Italy not that long ago, but how quickly we forget.

With COVID, a lot of the busy tourist destinations now require reservations to manage capacity. I hate that, as it pains my soul to have to pre-plan pretty much every day of a vacation, but we are where we are. For the first time in pretty much ever, I can tell you where we’ll be on any given day for the next four weeks. Ugh.

As we only have one more day booked in Madrid we have tickets for both the Prado and Reina Sofia museums – one each in the morning and afternoon. It makes perfect sense on paper as they are just a short walk away from one another and tackling them both now means we can move on from the big city.

Now we both like art, even though we aren’t at all sophisticated enough to understand the nuances that make a Picasso a Picasso and a Picardo just a Picardo. Yes, seeing Guernica is very cool, but after looking at 30 Ruebens in a single room and realizing you have at least 50 more rooms to go, your brain simply can’t handle it anymore. I know it is an empty promise (like swearing I’ll never pay for another buffet) but from here on out, one museum per day.

No photos allowed in either museum so if you’re curious to see anything we saw, Google is your friend.

On to more important matters. For reasons we cannot explain, a skillet with fried eggs, sausage, and potatoes (in fry form) here is not breakfast. Don’t let that sway you. It is still delicious as a lunch. The jug of sangria doesn’t hurt either.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. Just as the sun was coming up we landed is Madrid, breezed through immigration, and pulled up in front of the hotel just in time for second breakfast. Yes, that’s a thing here, although we’re still to full from the plane to partake today.

As planned, we do pretty much just drop our bags and head right back out, walking first to the Playa Mayor. It is surprisingly quiet but, as we linger, we see tour groups start to stream in from the different gates and, on the sunny side of the square, the cafes are showing some signs of life. The architecture is interesting but otherwise, there’s really not much to it. Good place for an inquisition I suppose, but we’re a few hundred years too late for that.

We spend a bit more time in the area wandering around old streets, checking out the market and, finally, stopping for lunch (early for Spain but late for those of us still used to a Seattle schedule). For a city nowhere near the ocean, a sandwich crammed full of fried calamari seems to be available everywhere and there are lines starting to snake out the doors of places that are serving them so, when in Madrid…

The perfect finish to a healthy meal like that (probably any meal for that matter) is a plate of churros, conveniently paired up with a cup full of melted chocolate for dipping (or simply spooning into your mouth if that’s your thing – not naming any names here).

Refueled, we set off for the Cathedral and Royal Palace. The former we wander through and the latter we skip. It is definitely as bougee as it sounds, but we feel like we have already seen enough palaces.

Given that we flew all night, it has been a pretty successful day. We’re heading back to the hotel for a nap, but my phone puts me at 17,000 steps, slightly more than the 300 it says I did this time last week. There will be a half-hearted attempt to rally for dinner, but nothing serious enough to overcome the jet lag that is stating to kick in.

It took an extra 12 months, two doses of vaccine, and a flurry of last minute activity but here we are, back on the road once again. There have been a lot of trips over the years, many to places much further off the beaten path than Spain, yet this one comes with a bit of a feeling that we are pushing some kind of new boundary. I know it’s silly, but we haven’t set foot in an airport for two years and I must admit, I’m a little nervous.

It turns out, there is a whole other world going on outside of what has been our COVID bubble. I would have said we were living a fairly normal life, going to grocery stores and Home Depot, meeting people at the office, spending time at the lake, and so on. One step into the terminal, however, and that illusion shattered. Here was normal life – loud, bustling, chaotic. I think that’s a good sign. I hope it is anyway.

Our path today (which has change a few times over past couple of months as travel advisories have come and gone, planes have been added to and taken of routes, and what not) takes us through Chicago and Miami, finally landing in Madrid about 24 hours after we begin. None of the sections is long enough to get a full night’s rest, but the goal is to piece enough naps together to hit the ground fairly alert and see a few sites. Always the optimist.