After a long, long day on the Camino, we’ve arrived in Lugo, the largest town on the Camino and with it’s 2km long original 3rd century enclosing Roman walls fully intact. We’re staying a few hundred metres from the walls but the Camino will take us inside to the cathedral at the start of tomorrow’s walk.

That’s Lugo from a small satellite village a km or so away.

We’re very, very tired. The day started well. We got up fairly early after a very pleasant night’s sleep in a very pleasant albergue (I suspect that the volume of mum’s wine intake last night made no small contribution 😉) and headed off on a long, reasonably steep climb out of the village.

As is usual first thing in the morning there are usually a dozen or so other pilgrims heading out at the same time but after a brief tussle for the lead peregrino spot, which I would have won had I not been slowed down by mum, we settled at the back of the peleton and chugged up the hill quietly.

These brassicas are everywhere. They appear to be a cross between a very tall cabbage and kale. They’re anything up to a couple of metres tall and unlike anything we’ve ever grown at home. We’ll try to pick up some seeds before we leave.

Shortly after we’d reached the top of the hill the path bifurcated with a red painted X over the Camino marker pointing to the left and a large green tick mark on the Camino marker pointing straight on.

Everyone carried straight on – except us.

The next six km were a delightful solitary trek

through a forest of eucalyptus trees on one side and oak and beech on the other.

We came out of the forest to make our way on small tracks

through a collection of hamlets before arriving at Castroverde, the first and only (very) small town on the route before Lugo.

We stopped for breakfast in a less than imposing cafe but we were hungry and thirsty. We’d forgone breakfast in the albergue and needed sustenance before continuing.

As it turned out they did a brilliant ham and eggs with decent bread and coffee – yay!

Castroverde was only 8km from O Cadavo and we had another 22km to cover so off we strode.

We came across this rather imposing tree

and some rather lovely hydrangeas

And some very interesting bits and pieces of Galician architecture.

As we passed through one small village there were some very strange sounds intermixed with chickens crowing.

That’s a 🦃.

Some lovely cows in someone’s back yard

Some more hydrangeas

And even more of these amazing brassicas.

Mum came across some wild fennel

And a passion clematis that we had in Maen Melin.

I’d read in Gronze that refreshments were relatively few and far between on today’s path but I’d expected some enterprising entrepreneurs to fill the gap with a small bar offering coffee and bocadillo jambon.

No such luck. We’d brought some stale bread, avocado, tomato, walnuts, figs and chocolate and lunch at 20km was ok. But we’d been thirsty and had finished our water. It was close to 30 degrees on the path and by the time we’d arrived in Lugo our throats were parched and our lips dry.

Thankfully as we entered Lugo we came across a small bar and three bottles of aqua con gas later we were back in the land of the living.

As I write we’re waiting in a small restaurant for the kitchen to open. Meanwhile we’re quietly making our way through a decent bottle of house wine.

Such are the travails of a peregrino.

Buen Camino