Day 9: Redondela to Pontevedra - Sunday, October 2, 2011

Pontevedra - a delightful town

We left the albergue at Redondela just after 6:45am, our earliest start to date. We were anxious to complete as much of the day's walk as possible before the heat became too oppressive. This meant that we were walking in the dark for more than an hour and for the first time we had to make our way along a forest path by torch light.

The plan was to have breakfast at the cafe at Jumboli as mentioned by Brierley. That cafe wasn't open at 7:45am, at least not on a Sunday. At 9:00am it was the same story in Arcade where both cafes were closed. We were, however, carrying plenty of liquid as well as chocolate and figs so we were able to survive.

I should note that we had some difficulty finding the route at Jumboli. At the cafe the yellow arrow points across the road but almost immediately we were presented with three choices. We could find no markings in the dark and decided to take the right fork. After about 200m we found a scallop tile and at the same time received a shout and a wave from three young Chinese peregrinos who had stopped further up the road and saw that we were unsure of the route.

We learned later that a cafe was open in Arcade, but off the Camino. Perhaps if we had ignored the yellow arrows and followed the main road through the town we would have found it.

Leaving Arcade

On leaving Arcade we first met two French peregrinos, a mother and daughter from Poitiers who had walked from Fatima. We met them again on a number of occasions after that and finally said goodbye to them on Praza da Quintana in Santiago.

There were two climbs during the day, one before Arcade and one after. The one after wasn't quite as high as the first but felt much tougher although we were over it by about 10:30am.

After Arcade it seemed as if we would not reach a cafe until the outskirts of Pontevedra. With still some 6km to go we came across a kiosk set in garden at Bertola. A cold drink and a toasted baguette with bacon and cheese set us up for the remainder of the walk into Pontevedra.

We had planned to stop at the albergue but as it is 1.5km from the centre we decided to push on. Instead we stayed at Pension Casa Maruja (€30), which is situated on one of the many fine Prajas in the town centre.

A late lunch of tapas turned out to be delicious and we had no need of a dinner. We spent much of the remainder of the day sightseeing or sitting outside cafes watching the world go by.

A late lunch of tapas

Anyone on this Camino should make a point of lingering for a while in Pontevedra. Apart from being a beautiful town with interesting buildings, it has a special atmosphere, particularly in the evenings when whole families come out for a stroll and maybe a drink at one of the many bar/cafes.

We were planning to stop at the new albergue in Briallos the following night and we tried to heed Brierley's advice about stocking up on food to cook dinner there, but I was unable to buy any type of vegetable in Pontevedra on a Sunday evening.