Spain Day 28

Cadavedo to Villapedre. After yesterday's great hiking, we couldn't expect such views today. Actually today was very nice, just not like yesterday. We walked through woods most of the day and had lots of good ocean views. The best views were right in Luarca where the city lies by a natural harbour and river valley. The weather forecast for today called for some thunderstorms but luckily they bypassed us. We left our hotel late this morning because breakfast wasn't until 8:30; it was served in a beautiful setting. Nevertheless we still arrived at our destination before 4 pm and got a great room at a great peregrino price of  €30.

Spain Day 26

Aviles to El Pito. Today was another great day of walking with temperatures reaching about 18C and the sky overcast with sunny breaks. The walk was mostly on paths through the woods with a bit walking on backroads and only a few minutes beside busy roads.  Yesterday on the link from The Primitivo to the Del Norte we didn't see any other peregrinos but today was a more normal Camino day. We saw a number from Germany and met a retired couple from Montreal. We stopped at 28 km because of the distances between towns even though it was only 2  pm. We are staying in a hotel that provides dinner and breakfast so we don't have to run around looking for food tonight

Spain Day 27

El Pito to Cadavedo. We started the day well with a better than anticipated breakfast at Casa Vitorio in El Pito. Particularly nice were the freshly squeezed orange juice with refill and the cake. Then we had a nice walk to the valley with Concha de Artado beach, where I got to take more pictures than I took the previous day. For starters the valley was spanned by a 15-pier highway bridge with a curve. Then we visited the beach where Susie spent some time collecting rocks. After 3 hours we had bocadillos in Loco de Luinea after which we had to choose between the high route and highway route. We chose the high route and were rewarded with fabulous views of the ocean from the ridge. As a result of the route we arrived back at road level about 2 km beyond Cadavedo and had angle back to find a hotel. Although we had to hike up some 1500 ft, this was our most enjoyable day of walking on this trip.

Spain Day 25

Today the weather was perfect for walking. It was sunny and reached a high of about 19C and the wind was moderate.  The walk out of Oviedo was straight forward and we were out of the city in no time.  We were up high enough to get a nice overview of the city and see both the old cathedral and the new convention centre. The last half of the walk was not as good because it was all next to roads. The only bad part of the day was supper at Pizzeria La Competencia. I got a pathetically small bowl of spaghetti with a bit of cod and shrimp for  €9.50. In retrospect, I should have sent it back and left. I blew off a bit of steam by writing them up on Trip Advisor.

Spain Day 24

Last night we stayed in Santiago de Compostela at a nice little hotel near the bus station. We asked where to go for a supermercado and restaurant and were told just go to the shopping center nearby. We did and found the largest grocery store come other stores that we have ever seen. It was easily triple the size of our Costco store. We boarded a bus to Oviedo at 9 am and arrived at 2:15 pm. After dropping our packs at our 4 star hotel, we walked 2 blocks to the cathedral with the intention of buying our credentiales for this Camino. Unfortunately it was closed so we walked to the tourist information office nearby to ask where we could buy them. It turned out that they had them and provided them free. All that is left to do is take a few pictures, check out the route,  eat and sleep. When we sat down in a restaurant, we were right next to a local couple in the restaurant business. The man was really helpful as he explained the entire menu to us including a description of the dishes that were typical of Asturias. As a result we sampled two interesting dishes.

Spain Day 23

When we started off this morning, we thought that we might stop and stay a few km out of Santiago de Compostela so that we could make the 9 am bus to Oviedo the next morning. As it turned out,  the walking conditions were ideal so we changed our target to the bus station at 4 pm. We were close arriving at about 4:15 after some 38 km. The next bus would have reached Oviedo at 15 minutes after midnight so we stayed in Santiago de Compostela. Today the Camino was mostly through woods on sand and gravel paths. They have done a good job on the paths as there was no mud in spite of ample rainfall the past 2 days. In Padrón we visited the church that is built over the mooring post that St James used and got picture of the famous mooring post.

Spain Day 22

We anticipated today with some trepidation because two websites predicted a lot of rain. We saw predictions of up to 50 mm of rain. The thunderstorms overnight confirmed that we were in for a very wet day. By daybreak the forecast was for showers so we were hopeful that there would be less rain. Our hopes came through as the day was a mixture of everything including a bit of sunshine. About 12:30 it started to rain quite hard but we lucked out by finding an unoccupied shelter in a vending machine area with tables and chairs. That became our lunch spot. After that we walked to Caldas de Reis where the rain stopped completely so we walked on to Carracedo where we checked into a nice hostal,  Parrilada Antonio. The walking today was excellent as we spent a lot of time on sandy paths in quiet little valleys. There was only one section of about half a km where we were on the shoulder of a busy road