Day 31 - Palas de Rei to Arzúa

We had a nice relaxing evening and dined with our Australian friends (John & Eileen), who again just happen to stay in the same place. The pilgrim menus was great and plenty of wine was included in our €10.

We set out for Arzua, its overcast but good walking weather. We pass through San Xulian, a classic Camino town with its 12th Century church dedicated to St Julian.










We don't stop as we have a long walk today and want to press on.














We arrive in Casa de Somoza and catch up with our Irish mate (it turns out that the extra room we managed to get in Palas de Rei was theirs and they were sent in a taxi 5km outside town, hay ho). We also met up with Andy and Paul again.

We stopped for a coffee and a snack then pushed on.

We passed over the bridge at Ponte Velha, a fine medieval bridge into Furelos. From here we begin a climb up to Melide through its rather haphazard modern suburbs.

The rivers are quite high now due to the recent rain falls that we always seem to just miss.

We stop to let Tony do running repairs to his feet.

The church is “Igrexa Santa Maria de Melide" 12th Century. There used to be a leprosy hospital here but has long disappeared. Shame, they probably could have sorted out Tony's rotten feet.

Back into the woods on a natural path; the woods are now mainly Oak and Eucalyptus trees which are grown for timber harvest. In fact, it represents 6.5% of the GDP for Galicia.

We make our way to Ribadiso which we will pass through.

Ribadiso is accessed via the medieval bridge over the Rio Iso. The building over the bridge is a wonderful reconstruction of one of the oldest pilgrim hospitals still in existence.

We arrive at our hostel for tonight, a modern well equipped one with restaurant and bar.

Our walk today was 32km and quite tough, 7 hours pretty much non-stop. We are both very tired and hungry as our snack lunch was just nuts, raisins and a banana.

I made a mistake with our mileage to Santiago, it's now only 38km.
Only 18km to our next stop at O Pedrouzo then 20km to Santiago on Thursday.

I can't believe we are nearly there.

Oh, and the strange little buildings at each farm are for storing Maze (Corn on the Cob).