4th of September we changed our plans and decided not to take the Camino Portugues back to get to the north coast of Spain, because we had talked last evening to two bikers from Canada, who told us that they couldn’t advance well on the Camino Portugues due to the enormous number of pilgrims, and we had made the same experience in the other direction. There was an old railway track along the Rio Minho on the Portuguese side which was transformed into a bike path, which looked very tempting to us as following a river usually meant smooth slopes. We had breakfast in the town of Valença which had…

3rd of September it was intensely pouring in Santiago and the water covered all surfaces. We used the time to slowly pack our bags and get ready for the next adventure. As we already had spent three nights in this city we felt like we had to leave the crowd. The energy around us was not the welcoming get-together of pilgrims as we had expected, because they all dealt more with their departure than exchanging their experiences. Our attempt to get in touch with the Rotary Club of Santiago also reflected this perception, because we had tried to contact them way ahead already in August, when they responded that everyone…

2nd of September we had pre-booked a tour on the rooftop and tower of the cathedral and the weather was cloudy but stayed dry during the visit. The tour started at the museum where we already had the chance to look at some of the treasures of Santiago. There was a beautiful copy of the central figure of the Portico of Glory, which was the original entrance for the pilgrims and can only be seen with an extra ticket and reservation. But I was happy to be very close to this copy of the statue representing St James, being originally created by Master Mateo from 1168-1188. I had seen this…

31st of August it seemed like the early birds at dawn were singing at us from the way to Santiago de Compostela, and you could hear the first pilgrims pass already in the dark. There were starlings making their comments on the cable lines while we were packing our bikes for the last leg to the main goal of all pilgrims. We had a small breakfast at the bar where last night we had the convenience food warmed up from the freezer. The Italian who was also staying at our hostel must have forgotten his walking sticks, because I had seen a pair standing in the hallway and I told…

30th of August there was still light rain in the morning but it got slowly better and we took it slow with the breakfast. The first pilgrims came by and we recognised Veronica, who was missing her credential at Villafranca del Bierzo from far distance. This time she didn’t look happy for another reason, but was happy to see us. She had very bad blisters and couldn’t walk anymore in her shoes and tried to walk in her sandals, which was even worse in the rain. We tried to help her, but unfortunately I had given my las Compeed plaster to Moritz the other day. Modesta was getting her some…

29th of August the stormy weather made the clouds roll in with curtains of rain over the mountain ridge, and the windows were washed by the horizontal flying rain. It didn’t take us too long to decide that this will be our day off the bikes and we’d be ready to relax and catch up on our diary. Ivan had already left very early and Martina and Francesco were getting prepared to leave while we still had our breakfast, looking out the window into rain and fog. We wished them “Buen Camino” and had from then on the place completely to ourselves. The landlady Modesta could really be proud of…

28th of August Villafranca-del-Bierzo offers three churches to see of which one is a Romanic one. In the first church where we wanted to get our stamp we saw a girl going throuh her backpack, desperately searching her credential to get her stamp. She might have forgotten it at the last hostel. By coincidence this hostel was just beside the Romanic church which was supposed to open in ten minutes. So I had a look for her credential and there was one lying from Veronica. Unfortunately, she hadn’t written her telephone number in it. So I thought it was better waiting for her to come instead of missing her along…

Today we would make a distance of round about 60-70km, which was most of the time following former railway lines. The first destination was Radstock, which was surrounded by green fields with old oak trees and pheasants jumping out of the brown ferns and shrubbery. More and more autumn colours appeared in the leaves. From Radstock on we followed the Wellow Brook. Just before the name-giving village Wellow we were asked by a nice young lady if we were willing to take part in a research they were doing for the National Cycle Network. We followed her questionnaire step by step, and gave her some comments on how difficult it…

27th of August we woke up early due to the pilgrims leaving during dawn. Something had changed compared to being in the dryness of the Meseta where our bikes and bags collected nothing but dust from the dirt roads. It was so dry that it was no problem to let the laundry hang outside even overnight. This morning a fine layer of morning dew had laid down on our hanged laundry and it was therefore not completely dry. Luckily there was a garden hose with which we could rinse our bikes, because the fine sand and dust started to find its way into the mechanics and caused grinding sounds you…

26th of August we still had to see one cultural highlight of León: the palace and monastery of the Basilica San Isidoro and connected to the cloister. It has a beautifully painted Romanic crypt in brilliant colours with the royal Pantheon. The building was built directly against the Roman city wall. It also shows a Renaissance library with its original leather cladded huge books, which one person couldn’t carry alone. To sum up the experience of León: it’s worth the trip. On our way out of town the Camino is passing by the Convento of San Marco which would have also been worth a visit, but we had to continue…