Caldas de Reis Spain – Newby to Expert Traveler

This is part five of a multi-part series on our experiences doing the Portuguese Central Route of the Camino de Santiago starting in Valenca, Portugal, and ending in Santiago de Compostela.

At seven o’clock, we woke up in Caldas de Reis at Hotel O Cruciero. We told the kids to pack up and meet us in the cafe downstairs for coffee. Jenn and I grabbed a table, ordered everyone a café con leche, and questioned whether we were hiking today or if our Camino was finished.

Emma and Alex had their own room, so we hadn’t yet had a chance to talk with Emma about her ankle. She had used some topical cream to ease her pain, but I didn’t know if that would be enough to get her on the trail. Emma complained about pain in her Achilles tendon, which had started early in the week but was worsening daily.

Caldas de Reis to Padron is a fairly flat and rural stage of the Camino de Santiago

Emma played basketball for eight years and learned to play through pain, so when she complains, I know she’s not exaggerating. When we asked how she was feeling, she said she wanted to give it a try. We told her that she needed to rely heavily on her trekking poles to take the pressure off her ankle.

We didn’t hurry out of the cafe. The coffee was great, and they served little pieces of cake with it. We had a couple of rounds of coffee, trying to prepare ourselves for the hike. I was sincerely worried. I saw her play basketball with ankle pain and shin splints in High School, and I was afraid she was legitimately hurt and was just pushing through the pain.

I trusted her judgment, though, and once we got started, things were pretty good. The weather was lovely. Emma was leaning on her trekking poles, which kept the pressure away from her ankle and helped with the pain.

Since Caldas de Reis was fairly small, it didn’t take long for us to hike through it and into the countryside. Once we left town, most of the Camino between Caldas de Reis and Padrón was rural, which made for really peaceful hiking.

Crosses at Igrexa de Santa Mariña de Carracedo

Early in the day, we arrived at Igrexa de Santa Mariña de Carracedo, a beautiful stone church. It is typical of the churches we saw in the area, with a gorgeous stone bell tower.

From there, we continued through the countryside, walking between farms and forests. The trail roughly followed the path of the small river.

We stopped for an early lunch at Bar Pardal around eleven o’clock. They were extremely busy, and it was difficult to get service. The main reason why it was so busy was that The Boys were there.

Just like during the previous day, the fact that there were around 30 in that group made it difficult for the staff to handle all the customers simultaneously. This made for chaos and slow service, but we got our breakfast sandwiches and drinks and enjoyed them in the covered patio.

While at Bar Pardal, we saw many familiar faces, including The German Girls, The Boys, and The British Couple. We enjoyed our brunch and then hurried out to get in front of The Boys, knowing it would take them a while to finish their meal and return to the trail.

We continued along the Camino, walking through the Galician countryside among farms and forests. We crossed Rio Valga and stopped for a drink and a snack at Buen Camino, a cafe across from Iglesia de San Miguel.

Buen Camino is a cute little cafe in a beautiful location next to Iglesia de San Miguel. That church is constructed in the same style as the other churches we saw in Galicia. Next to the church was a large cemetery. The cafe sits elevated over the cemetery with a fantastic view of the church and the hills on the horizon.

Once again, we ran into The English Couple who had also stopped for a quick drink. They were sitting on the patio overlooking the church, and we chatted with them while finishing our drinks, and then went back to hiking.

We were getting close to finishing our hike for the day, but as was becoming almost routine at this point, we were starting to hurt. Emma was still struggling with her Achilles tendon, Jenn was starting to limp as the hot spot in her foot got worse, and Alex was complaining about a bruise on his hip that was getting worse as the week went on.

The fact that we didn’t schedule an off day was beginning to look like a mistake. I was certain that our discomfort would have improved with an off day, and it was a mistake not to schedule one.

The options for lodging in Padrón were limited, so we booked an Airbnb for the evening. We stopped for another drink at Cafe Bar Galicia in Pontecesures and to contact the Airbnb. We finished the remainder of our hike and met with the host of the Airbnb in Padrón. After dropping off our backpacks, we ventured out to explore Padrón and get some dinner.

Padrón was a lovely town, but it was nearly impossible to get food before seven o’clock. Since the Spanish like to eat dinner fairly late, we had to check four or five restaurants before we found a restaurant serving dinner. While eating, we discussed the final day of the Camino. We were going to have our longest hike to date, about 17 miles, with about twice as much elevation change as our hilliest day so far. The forecast also called for rain.

No one was excited about hiking the last day between Padrón and Santiago de Compostela. Between the injuries, the difficulty of the final day, and the weather, the final day felt impossible.

In addition, I had planned to meet my friend Nate in Santiago de Compostela. Nate was an old friend that I hadn’t talked to in years, mainly because he had moved to Santiago de Compostela years ago to work in a community center. He was the main reason I had heard about the Camino, and I was looking forward to seeing him after all these years.

But everything seemed a little bleak. How were we going to arrive in Santiago de Compostela with enough time to spare to see Nate and Santiago itself? Especially when, at this point, we were barely capable of hiking, let alone at a faster pace on our most challenging day.

We decided that we should get up an hour early, and hopefully we would make decent time. After dinner, I settled into bed for the evening. I started to hear rain and then strong winds as they began to shake the shutters on the windows. I checked the Weather Channel app, and it was calling for rain tomorrow with gusting winds of up to 40 miles per hour.

What I wouldn’t do for an off day, I thought. A single day off would allow us to avoid the bad weather and get valuable rest for our aching bodies. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the banging of the shutters on the windows and all of my anxiety about the upcoming day.

This is part four of a multi-part series on our experiences doing the Portuguese Central Route of the Camino de Santiago starting in Valenca, Portugal, and ending in Santiago de Compostela.

We woke up refreshed in Pontevedra at Dpaso Urban Hostels. We had a private room with only 4 bunks and a private bathroom, which made the experience seem luxurious by Camino hostel standards.

Day 4 was a considerably flatter day with about half of the elevation change of Day 3

Much of the beginning of the day was spent walking through Pontevedra. Pontevedra was the largest of the towns that we had stopped in, with nearly 83,000 residents. Going forward, we would be staying in towns much smaller than Pontevedra, and Carlos warned us that we should consider booking our accommodations ahead of time, because the hostels fill up fast. We were also slow hikers, so we were coming into town later than most pilgrims, which made finding a hostel a little more difficult.

Sign marking 64,500 meters to Santiago de Compostela

With Carlos’s advice in our mind, we put Emma in charge of finding us a hostel, and she used a Camino app to find one in Caldas de Reis. Knowing where we were going, there was the small matter of hiking the 15 miles to get there.

The first and most important thing to do every morning was to find coffee. Having been in Spain for a few days, I was getting used to starting each day with a café con leche and a small snack, which is a wonderful habit.

We started hiking through the middle of town, crossing the Lerez River at Ponte do Burgo while keeping an eye out for a cafe. Following the bridge, we continued the hike uphill through the middle of town. Finally, we stopped for a coffee and some really delicious breakfast sandwiches that fueled us for the hike.

Streets of Pontevedra in the early morning

After breakfast, we left Pontevedra, and we were once again treated to amazing views of the Galician countryside. It was a bright, clear morning, and the temperatures were cool but not cold. It was absolutely perfect weather for hiking.

We stopped by Igrexa de Santa Maria to stamp our pilgrims’ passports and use the restroom. It’s a little church that caters to the pilgrims passing through. Next to the church is a cemetery with rows of mausoleums. We noticed a lot of cemeteries set up this way in Spain, with mausoleums next to a small church.

The church itself had a large yard in the entrance, where fairly tame chickens seemed unbothered by our presence. Outside, a man with a guitar and an amp played a Bruce Springsteen song, which seemed a little strange for rural Spain. We got our pilgrim passports stamped and moved on our way.

The next hour was spent walking on a wooded path next to a creek. The hike was peaceful with the creek flowing on one side, shade throughout, and an ancient stone path to walk upon. Several brooks crossed the path, and every time, there was a cute little stone bridge to help cross the brook.

This was about as calm and quiet a hike as you can imagine, but that serenity was about to end. Shortly after leaving the peace of the wooded area, we started to hear music, singing, and a group of young men lined up with their packs. The Camino was about to become much more crowded.

A path with drainage running over it and a stone bridge on the side

We were taking the main route of the Portuguese Camino, but starting at Pontevedra, there is an important split. Many pilgrims leave the main route of the Portuguese Camino at Pontevedra to hike the Spiritual Variant. It is a longer route that heads towards the Atlantic Ocean and then rejoins the main route at Padrón. It’s normally hiked in 3 days, while the main route, Pontevedra to Padrón, only takes 2 days.

Many of the pilgrims we were getting used to seeing, including the English Gentleman, decided to take this route. In many ways, the Camino is like life, where people enter your life and leave, often without fanfare or even a goodbye, and all you are left with are memories.

But as some have left the trail, we were joined by others. One such group was The Boys. The Boys were a group of high school students from the Boston area. They were there on an optional school trip during their spring break, and we had missed them in previous days because they were hiking the Coastal Route of the Portuguese Camino while we were on the Central Route.

They were well-behaved and polite young men, but they were unmissable. There were about thirty of them, and even though they were courteous, the sheer number of them was a disturbance. We met them shortly after the wooded area, presumably when they were taking a break.

We passed them while they were stopped, but since they were faster hikers than us, they had to pass us. Because there were so many of them, it took over a kilometer for the whole group to pass us. They finally passed us completely along the trail in the middle of the day, by a sculpture garden called Carballeira con Esculturas de Madeira.

We hiked another hour and a half before we found some lunch. We stopped at A Cabaza Cafe Bar, a little restaurant along the camino with sandwiches, pizza, and beer. It was a welcome sight, as we were getting tired and hungry. It looked a little busy from the outside, so we had the kids claim a seat on the patio. Then we went inside and realized why it was so busy.

The Boys were there. This was March, in the low time for the Camino, when only about half of the services like albergues and restaurants are open. When a large group pops into a cafe during low season, it can create problems for the folks running the cafe. The woman working the bar did a wonderful job of handling the unexpected business, and we enjoyed a couple of pizzas and some beer out on the patio.

While we were enjoying our pizza, Emma was complaining about her Achilles tendon. This was getting progressively worse for her, and it was beginning to get concerning. She was not looking forward to the rest of the hike that day and was getting a little cranky about it. Jenn and I, being the wonderfully understanding parents that we are teased her a little about it and told her to suck it up. She was getting pretty annoyed by the teasing.

We finished our lunch and went back to the trail, leaving A Cabaza before The Boys had finished their meal. This meant that they were going to have to pass us on the trail again. Emma was noticeably limping and was becoming more agitated as the hike continued.

Vineyards were common late in the day, approaching Caldas de Reis.

As we walked through vineyards, The Boys caught up with us and started the long process of the whole group passing us, one by one. As soon as The Boys were past us, Emma and Alex left us in the dust. Jenn and I figured that our teasing Emma had upset her, and she wanted some time by herself. Alex followed behind her, probably because we had been hiking too slowly for him the whole time.

Estrella Galicia mural along Camino near Caldas de Reis

We had no desire to try to keep up with them, and they clearly wanted a little space from us, which really wasn’t surprising given the amount of time we had spent with them. We just texted them that we would meet them at the hostel.

We made one last stop on our way to Caldas de Reis, at Albergue Vintecatro for a quick beer and a bathroom break. Sitting outside was the English Couple enjoying a late lunch. We chatted with them a little bit about how we had apparently made Emma mad, and she left us. They had become familiar faces along the trail, and we enjoyed our short chats with them.

We finally made it to Caldas de Reis around 4 PM. Alex and Emma had beaten us by about half an hour and were waiting by Hotel O Cruciero for us to show up. We walked into the lobby, and there were The Boys, all of them, crammed into the lobby trying to check in. The staff was feverishly trying to get the passport information from each of them and get them checked into their rooms. Jenn and I exchanged glances that silently said, “Are you sure you want to spend the night in the same hotel as The Boys?”

One of the staff members noticed us, and realizing how long it was going to be to check in all of them, graciously helped us book a couple of rooms. The rooms were only 55 euros per night, but they were also pretty basic. However, I was just happy to have a private shower. I was worried that with that many high school-aged boys in the hotel that it would be noisy, but after the check-in, we barely noticed them.

We spent the evening in Caldas de Reis walking around town. I especially loved Igrexa de San Tomé Becket, a stone church surrounded by palm trees.

We had some dinner and then went to a pharmacy to find some pain cream to help with Emma’s Achilles tendon. As it turns out, she was walking faster than us, not because she was angry with us, but because walking fast was less painful. We were starting to question whether we should hike the next day. I really didn’t want her to injure herself.

Small Plaza with Cross in Caldas de Reis

During the last couple of hours of our hike, Jenn had developed a hot spot on her foot that she mistook for a pebble in her shoe. It was becoming clear that physically we were beginning to break down, and we could use a day off. Unfortunately, our schedule didn’t allow it. We couldn’t finish the Camino with an off day; there wasn’t enough time. We went to bed that night, unsure if we would be hiking in the morning and hoping that some sleep would alleviate some of our pain.

Tag: Caldas de Reis Spain

Day 5 – Caldas de Reis to Padrón

Day 4 – Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis