Camino Frances 2022 - Travelling day 2

Travelling day 2 - Santiago to Triacastela

Walked 9.17km.

We got up at at about 8 and walked to the bus station only to find out that it was not there! there was a big hole where it had been and we found out that there was a new bus station next to the train station and seeing as we knew it's general direction we set off walking and found it (although it took us a while to find the bridge to go over the train lines and into the new station).

My practices with Duolingo paid off as I was able to buy the bus tickets fine.

Our bus went as far as O'Cebreiro and when it came we found that it was 'divided' in two - one part only went to Sarria and was absolutely full of Pilgrims and ours was going to every stop and was equal with Pilgrims and other travellers and pretty much followed the route of the Camino itself so we were able to see several Pilgrims walking as we went - a very happy sight! The bus was also an hour late arriving but we could not see how the journey could have been done any more quickly.

We stayed the night in Complex Xacobo where we have stayed many times before and fell easily into the Pilgrim arrival routine of setting up our beds, eating and washing.

We went to the restaurant attached to the albergue and I was very happy to have some Caldo Gallego again! And then the O'Cebreiro cheese with honey for pudding.

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The Camino Primitivo

The Camino Primitivo (or the Original Way) is reportedly the very first Camino Way to Santiago in the 9 th century when most of Spain was under the control of the Moors and it runs from near the city of Ovideo in Asturias as it starts in Villavicosa (which also lies on the Camino Norte so many people follow this Way from Basque city of San Sebastian (Donosti in Basque) or in from the French border at Irun ( this route then hugs the Bay of Biscay passing through Guernica, Bilbao, Santander, Llanes before going under the Picos de Europa and then heads along the coast to Ovideo) before branching off onto the Primitivo which goes across the mountains and through the city of Lugo before joining the Frances at Melide. The route is 320km long. Image taken from https://viaalpina2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/camino-del-norte-camino-primitivo/

Symbols of the three main Christian Pilgrimages

The symbol of the Pilgrim to Santiago is the Scallop shell of which many can be found on the coast of Galicia and it is actually a symbol of the Pilgrimage (and has become a symbol of other Christian Pilgrimages too) partly because you could find the shell easily there and so could go back home and show it off as proof that you had done the Pilgrimage. It has also been included in carvings in some Churches.

Pilgrims' Trail to Saint Michels Mont, France

I have only walked two of the Camino routes (the Frances and Portuguese) and still want to try many of the others and yet I am also finding other Pilgrimage routes that I want to walk - I did the Pilgrims' Way in the summer which starts from Winchester which is also the starting point for the Pilgrims' Trail a 155 mile route that finishes at Mont St Michel in Normandy, France. The cult of saint Michel was popular in Britain from the 9th century and the Pilgrims walking this way were called Miquelots and many Pilgrims on their way to Santiago. The route is marked by green way markers in Hampshire taking walkers from Winchester to Bishop's Waltham to Southwick and then to Portsmouth where ferries are caught to France and Way markers become blue. Tradition says that, in 709 Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to the bishop of Avranches, Saint Aubert, and told him to build a chapel in his honour on the island. The bishop obeyed and soon sent a group of monks over...

On the Camino

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