Distance by the guide book - 22.7km

Total distance for the day - 25.9km 

Flights climbed - 34

Thick fog surrounded us for the start of our walk this morning. It’s very atmospheric walking through the forest with the gnarly old chestnut trees, and yes, Joc, very Game of Thrones! It was actually a lovely walk. A lot of the day was spent on forest tracks surrounded by overhanging trees forming a canopy above us. For the rest of the day we were passing by farms, mostly dairy farms. We would need smellavision to share that experience fully with you!  Oh the sweet smell of the country!

Coming out of Sarria with 115kms left to go to Santiago we started counting down and looking for the 100km marker, a big milestone for us. Finally after a stop for a late breakfast at 11:44am we hit that sweet spot. Now the end really is in sight!

Our final destination today was Portomarin. It has an interesting history. Back in the 1960s a dam was constructed across the Rio Miño, flooding the original village. Many of the original buildings were deconstructed and reconstructed further up the hillside away from the flooding. The best example of this is the church of San Xoan. It was taken down block by block and put back together on the new township site. We entered the town across an impressively high bridge spanning the reservoir.  Originally there was an old Roman bridge in this spot. Apparently it and some of the old buildings can still be seen when the reservoir levels decline after a dry summer. There were no signs of it as we walked across the bridge today. 

After a 23km walk, really the last thing you feel like doing is walking up a giant staircase. However that’s what you’re greeted with in Portomarin. Once across the bridge there’s a stone staircase to negotiate. I think I counted 30 steps. The stones used in the staircase were part of the old village also. The new village is definitely built on a hillside. It was all uphill to our Albergue. 

It was a very busy Camino today with a lot more people joining us on the track. It’s quite a common thing for people to just walk the final 100kms, especially among the Spanish people.  Today there seemed to be groups of high school students and lots of family groups as well.  We took to calling them ‘the new shoe people’. They were easily identified by their shiny, new, clean shoes. After walking through all the cow poop today those shoes won’t be so shiny tomorrow!

We had another thunderstorm this evening but not much rain came from it. So far the weather gods have smiled on us and we’ve only had rain at night after we’ve finished our walk. Fingers crossed this pattern continues.