We’ve struck lucky. Tonight’s accommodation is excellent, great room, shower etc and we’ve just polished off a delightful dinner of salad and in my case, a bottle of Estrella Galicia Especial. The Santiago cake with Té Manzanilla wrapped everything up perfectly.

The bus trip from Santiago’s newly renovated bus station to Valença was quick (1:45) and effortless. I had plenty of time to do a deep dive on the technical aspects of STM32 hardware design and software development in preparation for the forthcoming series of YouTube videos courtesy of Matteo and myself, probably entitled ‘Matteo and the idiot’s guide to embedded development’. Matteo wants to film the process by which we go from complete novices to gurus whilst building an interface to a sophisticated ham radio. I rather suspect that I’ll never get past the novice stage but Matteo is nothing if not an optimist.

Anyway, back to the Camino.

The route kicked off from Valença bus station with a trip through this rather old fort protecting the border with Spain. It wound its way through the old fort, following what must have been internal tunnels to keep the defenders safe whilst under attack.

We entered Spain at the end of the bridge. A bunch of American peregrinos were busy taking photographs of themselves in front of the border sign itself so I didn’t bother.

Instead, here’s Dorothy caught in the act of throwing her hair tantalisingly in the wind 😊.

Estrella appear to have a mission to reinvigorate those peregrinos who are bored with forests of eucalyptus and spruce trees or colourful flowers strewn around the hedgerows. I think they definitely enhance the peregrino experience – remember this one?

Or this one?

On with the Camino.

This is the cathedral in Tui which we had to climb quite steeply to reach. Dorothy is attempting to get our credential stamped – again she failed. It’s Sunday, the cathedral was locked and bolted against intruders.

As an aside we’ve recently been watching Shogun, a new series which discussed the 1493 papal bull in which Pope Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia, reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown to the new world and the Portuguese to the far east, effectively dividing the world in two, giving half to Spain and the other half to the Portuguese. Hubris on an epic scale.

Must avoid a rant, must avoid a rant.

Shortly afterwards we left streets and houses behind and made our way through a much more rural landscape.

Five years ago we came across this very odd device hanging in the trees. I had no idea then what it was but today we managed to get up close and the text on the second image tells us its purpose.

Essentially a nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, commonly known as the pine needle nematode, is a vermin nematode that infests pine trees, destroying the resin circulation channels, causing them to die.

It appears that this device is designed to help in the eradication of the nematode. Presumably it has some unpleasant chemical means of doing so.

So, curiosity satisfied.

We set out this morning expecting somewhat changeable weather, alternating between rain and cold but instead we’ve found ourselves in sunshine throughout with dark clouds threatening occasionally but never acting. It’s a glorious spring evening, the birds are singing and we have five more days to complete roughly 113km to Santiago, I.e. a gentle stroll through rural Galicia 😊. Should be a proverbial doddle.

Buen camino