After our longest day and longest distance it was nice to sit at the farm house and enjoy beautiful view and evening sun.

Fortunately for us our goal for today was the Portomarine which was 19 km. this would be our shortest distance the rest of the trip. We decided to leave an hour later as sun was coming up.

It was another beautiful day with lush paths. Now that we have crossed Saria, number of pilgrims on the path has increased exponentially. Number of cows in our path and their pies has also increased in Galicia.

Original city of Portomarine was drowned in 1956, and a new city was created just above in the hills.

After settling in and lunch we decided to go down to the bridge and look at the old town. A torrential rain started for next 45 minutes and we were stuck under a shelter as the water from town started to flood around us.

We officially crossed the 100 km marker today (every marker has been suspect so far – the numbers seems to go back and fourth).

We thought we were done with all the records. The longest day, the most miles, the longest climb, the highest point, the most strenuous climb. We were wrong!

Our plan was to take the path that would bypass Samos and take us to Saria and then on to Barbadelo to a 17th century farmhouse converted to an Albergue that was highly recommend. This meant a respectable 22 km day.

We once again woke up early and left our Albergue at 6:30.

At this point our detective Sakkar discovered that the name of the town did not match what we were expecting. We realized at that point that in the dark we had missed our turnoff point somehow. We were 9 km into our day. The other path was going to save us 7 km. We decided to take our lumps and continue forward to Samos and see the 9th century monastery.

This day was a perfect day for a hike. Beautiful views, lush paths, nice weather. Every thing was just perfect.

By the time we made it to Saria it was almost 3 pm and we needed our lunch and the cover another 5 km.

By the time we made it to Casa Carmen, our destination. It was 6 pm and 32 km with 173 floors climbed. This makes it our most miles and longest day of hiking. Hopefully Camino does not have too many more of these kind of surprises for us.

This post will be mostly pictures from yesterday.

As we leave in the morning.

Morning scenery and break.

The path and walk to La Faba.

Climbing to Galicia.

To the town of Ocebrero and continue on in rain.

The last break and final stretch of the day.

It is amazing how you lose track of time! Every once in a while, one of us will ask the other, what is today’s date? or what day it is? After doing the Camino for over a month we have lost track of what is happening in the world. We think in terms of easy days or hard days and km covered. Just this morning I realized that the football games were played on Sunday and I had no clue who won or lost.

Our plan for today was an easy day to get 16 km so we can begin our most strenuous climb of the Camino tomorrow, well rested.

Last night as we went out for dinner we took a peak at the town of Villafranca. It is not only a pilgrim town but also a tourist town for the locals as there are more hotels than albergue’s in town.

Since we had a short day planned, every one decided on an extra hour of sleep. We left our Albergue at around 7:15.

Our path was along the river beside the old highway.

It was a simple but beautiful walk to our next village of Trabadelo which turned out to have a saw mill.

Breakfast there was simple.

Enjoyed some beautiful flowers along the way. Here is sampling of it.

Along the way I discovered the mystery of a walnut.

Does any one knows this tree? The blossoms remind us of something from Dr. Suess.

As we neared our destination we saw this marker.

We are settled in our Pension for tonight as we have an early morning departure for a longer day!

Today we were going to start by climbing for a short while and then downhill to Molinseca and onward to Panforada. We calculated that to be around 22 km.

We left at 6:30 in the morning. The weather was cool and misty with cloud cover. It was very easy to see that we had left beautiful but flat Meseta behind.

The view was so gorgeous that I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was one of those magical mornings when you realize why you are doing the Camino and why all the aches and pains are worth what you see. I am not sure if pictures can do justice to what we witnessed but here is my best attempt.

As you can see it was beyond words. It was tough walking downhill on loose rocks. We moved through Manjatin, Acebo, and Ambrose. The young group missed a turn and ended up going down the paved highway. We stuck to the beautiful downhill path. After 4 km we look down on the highway and there are 4 young adults walking down. Amazing that we run into each other like that. We all walked down together to next tow Molinseca. We had already done over 21 km by then our town was still supposedly couple of km away. It was already 2 pm and we were all hungry. Spanish siesta forces you to eat now or be forced to wait until 7. The kids decided to eat while the rest of us marched on. It turned out to be 28.5 km before we made it to Panferado. Hence the title Agony. It was slightly past 4 when we checked into our Albergue.

Few of us decided to go on and check out the beautiful castle in town. We then had one of the most wonderful home cooked meal in Spain at our private Albergue As I look at my meage we ended up with 32.5 km which makes this our longest day yet.

Here are the pictures from yesterday. As we are leaving the town of El Ganso.

As we walk to Rubinal.

360 view along the path to Foncebaden.

Cruze De Feroze

Having fun.

Today our goal was to walk 18 km to Foncebaden, only 2km from Cruz de Ferroz.

This felt like the last full day in Meseta as the landscape has changed completely and we are in the lush green and hilly terrain. I am not sure how many beautiful sun rises will be in the next stages.

It was once again a fantastic morning for a hike. The slight coolness in the air made it sweet. Half waning moon was spreading enough light so we did not need flash light in the morning. We left at about 6:25 and were in El Ganso before the town was up so we kept going to the next town.

We made it to Rubinal De Camino by 9:30 and had already covered over 10 km. After breakfast we moved IMO our slow climb of the day through the beautiful mountIn toward Foncebaden.

Foncebaden was a ghost town until 2000 and is beginning to come alive with albergue’s due to Camino.

I am unable to load any pictures as there are no wifi in this town and the phone signal is not strong enough to upload pictures.

We are settled in for the day with a nice lunch. Few of us decided to climb to Cruz De Feroze this afternoon after the rain as we will be passing it early in the morning before the sun rise.

Tomorrow after a brief climb we will be going down to Ponfereda some 25 km. It is a much bigger town so hopefully I can post the pictures for both day.

Our goal today was the ancient city of Astorga and then continue on to Santa Catalina de Somoza, a distance of 22 km. we wanted to make it to Astorga mid morning when we had energy to enjoy the town. We left at about 6:40 and made slow progress through lush green hills (you can feel the land beginning to change).

We ran into David, who exuded pure joy and happiness. He was manning this booth with fruits, coffee, cookies, nuts etc in the middle of nowhere. Every thing was free (there was a box for donation)

David has done Camino multiple times. He seemed well travelled. He has been to India. He has been manning this booth for 5 years and living a simple life that reminded me of Walden Pond. He was oozing positive energy.

Our first glimpse of Astorga was from this mountain with the cross.

As we entered we saw a house structured in the third century. We also had our breakfast at the plaza.

We then saw the bishops palace and the cathedral.

In the next town we found a cafe with great fruit juice and vegetable smoothie where we also picked up our dinner food as it looked very good.

After 5 more km we arrived at our Albergue. We are all done with our 22.5 hike and dinner.

After dinner as we were taking a walk around town, we saw this flag carrying practice for some celebration for Virgin Mary coming up on September 22nd.

Since I could post any of these pictures yesterday due to connectivity issues, I will try now!

This 13th century bridge is the most intact among a all the bridges along the Camino and built on top of a previous roman bridge.

We did find a cold stream to cool our feet. I have found this to be one of the best therapies during Camino.

Today we decided to stay with another 20 km day. Our goal was the tiny town of Santebeniz De Valdeiglesias. We again took the slightly longer and more scenic path to Astorga.

The wifi connection is very bad in this town so I am not sure if I can upload any more pictures. It took me quite a long time to load the two above.

Since I can’t seem to load the pictures, I will provide a quick summary. We traveled about 9 km before breakfast. It turned out to be a fairly leisurely day as we moved from town to town in a group. We enjoyed the 13th century bridge (last picture) as we walked through history. The scenery is changing as we are in hing toward the end of Meseta in the next few days. We start to begin our climbs starting tomorrow.