May 22
Last night‘s hotel sat in front of a train station. This morning we crossed the tracks and are following them to where they connect with the Camino. You may remember from yesterday that we actually left the Camino in town however we went to dinner and realized that this connection was in front of us so from our restaurant we Followed the Camino to these railroad tracks
We have arrived at the intersection of the train tracks and our Camino Trail. There is a large graveyard cathedral located on this corner. There are many beautiful colored flowers on the grave sites.
Just outside of the cathedral, God has provided his own flower
From the cathedral we go through A smaller Neighborhood. We passed by a coffee shop with a cool stone sculpture of a hiker. We also received our first stamp of the day here.
We come out of the Smaller neighborhood and back to a larger street. We’re still in a fairly busy area of the city. I’d expect transition into a more urban area as soon.
We’re back to narrow streets Stone walls. It is all very similar yet unique.
We hear bagpipes in the distance and arrive to a group receiving more stamps for our passports, and a street musician playing the bagpipes. Sherri and David are dancing a jig to the music.
We come into another small town and another cathedral. There was a man inside stamping our passports. I took a moment for some quiet time talking with Jesus.
Each day I have seen this couple at least once on a trail. They hold hands for a little bit off and on. I saw them sitting out in front of the cathedral and needed to stop and ask them where they were from. They’ve said that they are from Germany they’ve been together for 10 years . I told them that it warms my heart to see their affection towards each other.
We have just left the first cathedral and already are coming up on another large one with its tall Bell tower. Turns out this is another cemetery. It seems all cemeteries have cathedrals, but not all cathedrals have cemeteries.
As we continue through the neighborhood, we see an adorable dog, relaxing as he leans over the fence watching us. A couple houses down were some more beautiful flowers.
We continue through more narrow streets and stopped in a café for a short break. As we leave, the narrow streets open up to a Dirt road surrounded by trees.
Once again, the road opens back up to a small community passing by a couple of monuments.
I pushed hard up a hill and began hearing a piano about halfway up. When I got to the top there was man playing a keyboard out here by himself for us pilgrims.
We took some time for a stop at a nice little Tienda for some pizza. We briefly sat by a few other hikers before returning to the trail.
We are back in a green area with a dirt road, lots of greenery and more of the trees covered in Moss and Ivy that I enjoy looking at.
Each of these pedestal style Camino markers list the number of kilometers left until we complete our pilgrimage this latest one tells us we are 10,600 km from completing our pilgrimage
The trail performers are definitely one of the things about this trail that I love. This one is singing on his guitar.
Our trail comes to a road and turns us 90° to go up and over the highway on a bridge. We’re going down into the community. Our kilometer markers are now in the single digits. It feels like a bit of a rite of passage at this point.
We’ve come to another town, which of course means we’ve come to another cathedral. This one is much smaller than most and seems to honor Mary.
The Camino symbols of the shell are everywhere you look this building has a planter out front with painted rocks arranged in the shape of the scallop shell.
We continue on now walking through more of a city setting once again
We see a cute miniature horse eating on the side of the road then we round the corner and get our first view of the Santiago de Compostela cathedral’s spires in the distance
We stopped at a roadside ice cream stand, and all had a little treat. It’s a little pick me up for the last 2.5 miles
Once again we come to with more plant Life and another attractive stone bridge, walk through a busy downtown, and soon arrive in the older part of the city. As we walk down the narrow street, you see one of the cathedral towers we are about to enter the courtyard.
Six days, 75 miles of trail, and over 80 miles of walking when we add in our hotel and city explorations. We have finally arrived! The Cathedral is amazing.
