In the afternoon we were escorted by more friends of Bruce for a tour of the town of Cognac. Sister Salvatore, my high school French teacher would be proud at how much I understood given my French grades. Must be all the knowledge gleaned from living over half my life in Canada and reading cereal…

Morning at Jean and Bruce's in Bordeaux: Our friends have a connection in the next village, Saint-Fort-sur-Gironde, who was able to get us into the bell tower of the church, Eglise Saint-Fortunat. We walked up a very narrow winding stairway, outside, to the very breezy top. This is not an activity for those who are claustrophobic of…

The sun was rising when we arrived at our gate at the Santiago Airport.  Our 3.5 hour layover in Barcelona was spent in a pleasant outdoor courtyard, still within the security zone at the airport. We indulged in tapas and a last bit of Spanish wine and beer from our favourite vineyard. Oops, airport pricing.…

We are determined to lighten our load for this year's Camino as opposed to last year's: – We shed some weight by omitting the sleeping bags, as We were ending a few weeks earlier. It's amazing how warm silk sleeping bag liners are. – We also left behind the extention cord, something we read was…

Thank goodness we accomplished so much yesterday, this morning we awoke to rain. On our way to breakfast we watched soggy pilgrims, still joyful, arriving at the cathedral.   Lunch was a generous portion of tapas in the garden room at Cafe Bar Recantos, the jazz bar from yesterday. We picked up some souvenirs and magically…

What took us four days to walk was accomplished by the slow bus in two hours. I think I'd rather walk as it was at 6:45a.m., cold, and headache provoking due to perfumed riders. The sun rose as we re-entered Santiago. It was a glorious day to do the post Camino drill, starting with a…

October 2  A well earned rest day at the westernmost point of Spain. We walked the last kilometres to the ancient end of the earth. On our way we collected beach glass close to the alburgue.  We did the pilgrim ritual of ducking under the famous healing rock. Then another seafood lunch, this time najares,…

October 1: 21k The last day of our 20 day walk on the Camino. Although I'm sad, but we're sorely in need of a rest day. This year we did 19 days of walking, and one rest day, just under half of last year's Camino Frances. I had forgotten how much work it was. Not…

As yesterday we made our decision at the split in the road, we are now on the Camino Muxia. This post is dedicated to the many horreos we saw. Horreos, are garnaries built on tall legs to keep out the rodents. If there are stairs on the side, there is a gap between the steps…

September 30: 22.6k Managed to leave a half hour earlier at 8:30 a.m. It was a mizzly morning, heavier than mist, not quite drizzle, and the temperature significantly lower than in previous days. It eventually burned off. We split our usual protein bar on the trail and stopped for second breakfast, this time not until…