Gord: Yesterday we had a short walk into Ribadeo to allow us the time to visit Cathedral Beach. This beach, located a dozen kilometres west of Ribadeo, is one of the premier tourist attractions in Galicia. We took a bus out, and we knew from a distance that we were approaching the beach because of the large number of parked vehicles. In the summer visitors ...
Giving our respects to Santiago in Soto de Luiña I arrived in Avies covered in grease after Grandma Friday’s Chain came off of a third time. By 4:00 I had dropped her off at the repair shop to get a full tune up. What a difference, now she has a good range of seven gears. We have had two beautiful days of riding. Little ribbons ...
Gordon, Grandma and I A tough section of stony Roman road, not recommended for bikes. I have reconciled with Grandma Friday after a few misunderstandings. We have been together for a long time, so naturally one expects a few bumps along the way. She explained it all to me more calmly after throwing her chain off in a fit of frustration, and forcing me to ...
Walt and I. Some people are just made of different stuff than the rest of us. Generally I feel like I am pretty fit and strong for a woman of my age, but there a lots of women on the Norte who are in their sixties and seventies. Unlike me most of them don’t coast down the hills on a bicycle, but make the way ...
We missed a lot of the coast on our cycle trip along the Camino del Norte in 2014. The last two days of walking, biking and pushing have been varied and simply stunning. We followed tracks around headlands, crossed beaches on boardwalks, and of course, climbed steep roads up into the mountains. I’ve accepted that I just have to walk up the steeper climbs now that ...
I’m sitting in the square in the shade of the Santiago Cathedral in Bilbao. Gord should be along any minute, but this is a lovely place to wait. As the signs have told us since we started the Camino del Norte, we are not in Spain, we are in Basque County. Yesterday we passed through the town of Munitibar, the self-proclaimed heart of Basque Country. ...
Grandma Friday and I having a rest Unfinished business on the Camino del NorteI’m feeling a bit like Sisyphus. After finishing the Via de La Plata, we took a 12 hour bus ride to Irún so that we could once again make our way to Santiago. We clearly need help. We struggled trying to decide which Camino route to do next. There are pros and cons ...
More pictures to come… having some technical difficulties The route into Santiago on the Camino Sanabres is the best approach by far of any caminos we have done. At three kilometres from the Cathedral we were still going up and down in a very rural landscape. At one kilometre we popped into the city proper. My bike was starting to slip out of its gears more ...
Our pilgrim friends are now walking into Santiago each day. They take the required photo in front of the Cathedral which they text to the group. Sometimes they share a few thoughts about the impact of the Camino before they send their heartfelt goodbyes. Enrique (Hervé in France) posted his picture with a comment that in all our time together we never shared why we were ...
It’s COVID of course, but you won’t hear it mentioned on the Camino unless you are talking to me. I am recovering from COVID, and yes I know it was COVID, because I took a rapid test when I was first ill and those two red bars on the test popped up right away. Everyone else who is hacking and fighting a “cold” are walking ...