Camino Ingles

March 2nd 2009

Peter and Kate at Ely train station - Kate looks REALLY excited to be going!

Kate and Bridget still waiting for the train

Peter re-adjusts his backpack, probably not for the first and CERTAINLY not for the last time.

Ely-Stansted: Good

Stansted-Plane: Bad, too much waiting in dry air.

Ryanair flight: Good, especially as we had our own food and water so they didn’t get  more money from us.

Lavacolla Airport to Santiago Bus Station: easy, quiet, pleasant (E3)

Bus Station Cafe: aah! a cup of tea!

Santiago-A Coruna: another pleasant bus ride (E6.90) through beautiful scenery, our first sight of a horreo and some dozing.

A Coruna bus station-Pension La Alianza: a rather more energetic taxi ride  – personally I don’t think hooting at people in the wrong lane helps!

So we arrived at the start of our journey!

La Alianza is perhaps 50m from the Plaza Maria Pita, on the Calle de Riego de Agua

After a wash and a rest, we ventured forth,

Plaza Maria Pita

and sat in on the 8 o’clock mass at the church of Sant Iago. For a non-Spanish-speaking anglican like myself this was a stilling, almost contemplatitive, experience, with little understanding or participation, and rather unusual.  No-one approached us afterwards, and we went off to find some food.

I love this St James - he looks so grounded, somehow.

We admired the lovely seafood but actually ate more simply – Caldo de Gallego, mainly, as we were almost too tired to eat.

Wow!

and double WOW!!

March 3rd 2009

Bridget woke with a sick headache – immediately identified as tea withdrawal symptoms.  La Alianza is clean, friendly, quiet and warm but it does not have ANY accessible plugs, thus rendering our dip-in-the-cup water boiling apparatus, tea-bags and dried milk supplies useless. Neither does La Alianza provide breakfast.

So we set off, back to Santiago as our starting place, with an eye open for a bar for breakfast.

That's better!

The coffee's good too!

The church was closed and deserted

The church of Santiago in A Coruna

West door

North door - love the cows' heads!

- there didn’t seem to be any likelihood of acquiring credentials here, so we set off, following the first yellow arrow!

There IS a yellow arrow, if you look hard!

We spent a long time actually leaving the city centre; first we tried to get a credential from two tourist offices, then we went looking for the Plaza de Humor, then we came across the market and wandered round choosing cheese and tomatoes, then we saw all sorts of interesting things that needed to be recorded with a photo:-

So elegant, so Spanish!

What IS this statue about?

There's clearly a lot of feeling here...

and here...

while this chap looks like Gollum, maybe...

and this one must be very uncomfortable...

Perhaps Wikipedia could help?

Maybe this will be easier to understand...

'Haven't we met before, somewhere?'

'That's no-one I know, for sure!'

'I don't think it's humorous to make fun of a chap's nose!'

Cool tiles...

Cool door!

Here's a bit of history I do know!

Finally we were really on our way, with a waymark to prove it.

We were using Johnnie Walker’s CSJ Guide to the Camino Ingles, which took us across a park with a monument to Alexandre Bovedas. From the monument itself I thought perhaps Bovedas was a pioneer in children’s education, so I was surprised to learn, although he waas indeed a school teacher, he is revered as a Galician nationalist politician executed by Franco in 1936.

Who says monuments have to be dull?

or gloomy?

Even the sign is child-like.

After this, if I recall aright, we passed the bus station, then up a long hill, the Avenida Molenos, where there are a couple of little supermarkets for stocking up on picnic or breakfast material which could be helpful for people who make a prompter getaway than we did. At the top of this hill we took the route JW mentions, turning right opposite house no 8 and beside house no 11.

House number 8 built on a rock.

The turning beside no 11.

This was a great move, away from the traffic and the noise. Immediately we were in lanes with hedgerows, individual houses with gardens of cabbages, scrap wood or poultry. We were walking above a green valley of a playing field between us and masses of stacked up blocks of flats; one overall-ed older woman walked purposefully across it and we all felt cheered for some reason!

The view from the lanes.

There were a lot of lanes, and little guidance from JW as to which to follow. As the holder of the guide I used the following criteria for route-finding: where there was a choice of right or left we went left and where the choice was between left and straight then I chose straight on, or KSO as the guide has it.  This brought us eventually to a track alongside a fence which forced a full left turn. It was lunchtime and sunny, there was gorse and a smooth rock to sit on – it had to be lunch time!

We could see across to the bay and Portazgo on our left...

and the motorway was over to the right. We followed the track left back to the road as it came down the hill.  It looked as if the fence was protecting an old military site, perhaps an arsenal. Most of it now looked unused, but there were cars parked so maybe some buildings are still in use.

As we came to the place where our road crossed over the dual-carriageway coming from the motorway over to the west, we were thrown a bit by JW’s implication that we should walk on the hard shoulder across the bridge over the dual-carriageway, as we thought that would be risking life and limb. However we discovered that by following the pavement down the slip road to the right we were led to a footbridge over the dual carriageway, and a footpath on the other side which took us back to the Alcampo superstore, which has convenient conveniences, by the way.

We were walking on the right hand side of the road through Portazgo, and found we couldn’t cross the busy road when the left hand turn, signed O Burgo, came up, so had to retrace our steps to the pedestrian crossing. It was then quite a long stretch to the O Burgo Renfe railway station, and then to Santiago de O Burgo church, which has scallop shell gates.

The church of Santiago at O Burgo.

From there it was a very short stroll to the medieval bridge over the Ria du Burgo, and the first sign board for the Camino Ingles.

Sign board at O Burgo

Crossing to the east bank of the river,

we watched this egret from the bridge...

he wouldn't keep still for the photography...

or catch his fish at the right moment!

From here we struck out on our own, ignoring both JW’s directions down the road on the east side of the river to Cambre, and the ‘official’ route along roads on the west side to Sigras. Instead we followed the riverside path on the east bank of the river , now the Mero.  The important thing seems to be to stick to the east bank.  We were tempted by a new looking bridge with a clear footpath on the other side to cross at the mostly abandoned grain depot (called Bunge),  but after a couple of hundred metres we came to a bridge which blocked off the path insurmountably. So after that we ignored all bridges and possible paths on the west bank (it looks like there is a scheme of footpath and picnic areas development, so perhaps one day there will be a joined up route on the other side) and the path on the east bank took us with no problems (and no hills, that’s the blessing of riverside paths)all the way to the first road bridge over the river near A Telva, where (as added reassurance that we were where we should be according to the map) the railway could be seen crossing the road just up to our left.

We crossed the bridge here to the west bank, and continued down a riverside path round a bend in the river. We passed an outdoor worship space with a cruceiro,

A stone altar and benches - for whom?

More information recorded for future Wikipedia investigations!

This was next to a rather run down looking porta cabin with a sign announcing Communidade de Home Novo. It was a pleasant spot; there were primroses on the bank, and a bit down the river was a spot which I imagined could have been used for baptisms by a fervent minority Christian sect!  However, so far, no googling has produced any information on this group and there is probably a much more ordinary explanation of this place!

Soon after this the path rises to the road. We turned right on the minor road, then straight across a cross roads with an electricity transformer. This was A Pena.  Taking the second left we made our way up hill, towards Santiago de Sigras, our third Santiago of the day! A gathering of elderly ladies encouraged us to keep on uphill, and there was a marker post at one junction where we weren’t sure what to do. This brought us to the three way junction with a cruceiro on a triangular patch of grass, from which it was a short walk, still up hill, past a St Anthony, to the church.

Roadside shrine to St Anthony at Sigras. 'If you're seeking miracles, you must look!''

The door was locked, however.

So was this one.

Next to the church is a old pilgrim hospital...

which seemed to be being used for a group meeting - we tiptoed away without disturbing them.

We retraced our steps down the hill to the cruceiro at the three way junction, and followed the road we hadn’t yet taken downhill to a mainer road, where we turned right and followed the road up to the junction at Os Campons where the Hotel Alba awaited us.

Milanesa steaks (of veal?) and chips with red wine rounded off a very satisfactory day!

Hotel Alba - they put three beds into one room for us, for E50. We did d-i-y breakfast!