Camino Day Thirty-Four- Sarria to Portomarin (15.6 Miles)

Due to the late night with the Mariner’s game we got off to a late start on the Camino. Boy did we make a mistake doing that. As we walked out of our hotel at 8:30 and found the Way, it was covered with more pilgrims than we have ever seen. As we previously explained many pilgrims start at Sarria and they all appeared to be directly in front of us.

So we adjusted. Instead of power walking the first three or four miles we just learned to follow in step (very hard for John). The good thing is we stopped at every church along the way and no one else did, we really mean no one else stopped. So again, we found the solitude we so enjoy, at the churches.

The Galicia churches continued to be small chapels and small churches with very simple interiors. We still enjoyed them so and got the same spiritualistic feeling as we entered each.

In each Hamlet we walked through we saw the most unique structures made of stone, brick, and sometimes wood. We explored what they were and found out they were Horreo or Granaries. They are designed to keep rodents out and store corn, grain, and nuts. They were way cool.

We arrived in Portomarin around 1:30 and had a grand lunch looking down upon the river. We read about the town and discovered that Portomarin is the “newest old town in Galicia”. The event that made this oddity occur was Franco’s decision to dam the Minho river. In doing so the reservoir created would submerge Portomarin. So they moved the town up on top of the hill, the important structures, stone by stone. It reminded us of what we saw in Egypt when the Temples were moved when the High Dam was built in Aswan.

After showering and relaxing we walked the town and had a lovely dinner with the very firt friends we meet in St Jean Pied de Port. We both had assumed we would cross paths quite often, but this special moment was our first time, a little Camino magic.