We’re pleasantly ensconced in Pension Jardin in Padron (yes, of peppers fame). It’s a lovely Pension, neat double room with attached bathroom so no cold walks down dark corridors at night. I’ve just picked up emails and came across this very funny Donald Trump joke on Quora. (https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-Donald-Trump-joke-you-have-heard/answer/Steven-Weiner-13?ch=10&share=9fe8fc82&srid=uhLlf). Read it slowly and savour 😊.

Not a lot to say about today’s walk. It was short. In anticipation of this we left later than usual and Dorothy and I walked at a very gentle pace. We stopped a couple of times for coffee with the addition of egg and bacon in the first. The Spanish do a very decent egg(s) and bacon and given that we’re likely to walk after breakfast for at least another three hours or so, we’ll quickly turn the excess fat into energy.

We kicked off along a typical forest path

which meandered gently through fields and villages. For my money the highlight of the trip was the hidden valley of Cala lilies and we still see occasional clumps of them now and then.

The second stop was at a small cafe in which was a room covered from floor to ceiling with Camino graffiti, to my mind extremely unpleasant but I’m clearly in the minority.

As with every walk on this Camino there are interesting things to see.

Turkeys for example.

Goats

Two new born lambs

An odd little statue

Clouds in an almost cloudless sky

Small plots of land given over to small scale agriculture.

And of course, 🦆

A short distance from Padron we crossed this old bridge. If you look closely at the image you can see that the river is being pushed upstream by the incoming tide. Clearly the river is still tidal at this point.

We reached Padron quite quickly and had a late lunch alongside this statue.

I really do like the Spanish penchant for interesting descriptive sculptures.

The Pension is next door to the local botanical gardens. The trees are common around this part of the world, are sculpted to suit – not sure what they’re called, must find out. (They’re plane trees, common across Europe, thank you Juanita)

I’ll finish with a couple of images of the forest today.

After today’s short trek, Santiago is only some 25km away. We’ll head out early tomorrow morning, around 7:30 most probably and I’d expect to to reach Santiago around 3 o’clock. According to the Camino office, only 86 pilgrims arrived at Santiago in the 24 hours between midday yesterday and midday today which suggests that the queue for the compostela tomorrow should be mercifully short. Fingers crossed.

Buen Camino