Caminho português - Page 6

Caldas de Reis - Teo

We continued on beautiful forest paths towards Padron. On the way there a farmer stopped us and gave Manu a four-leaf clover leaf, later also to me. He spoke and spoke, even though I told him that we don’t understand Spanish. But that didn’t stop the friendly man from doing it 🙂. Padron himself was important for the story of James, as legend has it that the ship that carried the body of the Apostle James was moored here. The place itself was not very pretty, we wanted to continue anyway. The church, where the Roman milestone was located, which gave the town its name, was also just closed. So coffee break and continue ...

The further path became more road-laden and it started to rain again. Arrived in Teo, we found no hospitalero, but the hostel was open and we were able to shower and make beds with the net supplies. The rain became stronger and so I went to look for where you can get food and drink in the vicinity of the relatively remote hostel. About 500 m further there was a bar, here we went to eat and drink in the evening. But we didn’t see the Hospitalero anymore, so there’s no stamp in the Credential from here. But from the bar 🙂.

Teo - Santiago de Compostella

Breakfast was available today only after a few kilometers in the rain in the next bigger place. But the rain stopped in the course of the morning and so we walked the last kilometers towards Santiago. The path was optimally laid out, so that we had to go down from the nature paths to the roads just before the city area. However, a decent and mountainous suburban route had to be managed. But soon we were standing in front of the cathedral, we had agreed on our further course of action, as our return flight was already in the evening.

We left our backpacks, as they were not allowed in the cathedral, and first visited the tomb of the Apostle and embraced his statue on the altar. This is a must for every pilgrim of James, at the tomb everyone made their wishes or spoke prayers. After that, around 12 o’clock the pilgrimage mass began. Especially beautiful was the singing of a nun, she had a lovely, clear voice, the cathedral matching sound body.

In the pilgrim office we fetched thereupon our Compostella, the names into a Latin translation to transfer, drives already sometimes curious blossoms 🙂. Now the photos in front of the cathedral, on the Camino frances a Spanish woman once told me that you have to lie down in front of it. So did Manu then, I had my lying photo still from before 🙂. Or maybe I was fib and just wanted to see her lying in front of me? Who knows 🙂.

The beautiful obligatory procedure was done first and so it went first in a restaurant. After that Manu strolled a bit through Santiago, while I looked after our backpacks in the cafe. But at some point we had to leave 😔, the bus stop to the airport was quickly found and we were almost too late at the Ryanair counter. Bye bye beautiful Spain, bye bye beautiful Portugal ...

After landing we had a terrible 12 hours return journey from Frankfurt / Hahn, including 4 hours stay at the main station Frankfurt/Main. No, you didn’t see many normal people there at night. Everyday life had us back too quickly.