Day 1 - Buenas Dias España

I know who I am... Sonia knows who she is... Neither of us need 'to find ourselves'..

And yet we are about to become pilgrims. 

Today we find ourselves in Lugo... the start of our Camino Primitivo, one of the many routes to Santiago De Compostella.

The plane ride, courtesy of Ryan 'we will charge you for anything extra' Air, was short and sweet... A row of seats to ourselves and more legroom than I remember. Sonia almost missed the entire flight having nearly nodded off in her row of seats before coming to join me in my row.

Having landed and seeing something we remembered from the dim and distant past... blue sky and sunshine.. we strolled out of the airport, to the bus ticketing office, conveyed our need en español for 2 bus tickets to Lugo and then sat and waited..

Sonia said it reminded her of Barbados... I think we were looking at a different view. That said the forest that stretched out beyond the airport as far as the eye could see did look really pretty. 

The bus to Lugo duly arrived and we boarded with a cheerful holá.. already putting our meagre Spanish to good use. (Thanks Teresa!) Then we settled to watch the countryside flash by, aware that we would see this much slower on the way back. House envy quickly became apparent as we passed some lovely villas nestled in green fields. There were several I'd already marked as mine in my head only to be surpassed by the next one. The small towns we passed through already had familiar names... Pedrouzo, Melide.. towns we would be staying in on our slow camino (walk) back to Santiago.

Sonia decided a power nap was in order... either that or she had already got fed up of my talking... 

So why were we here if not to find ourselves? 

A chance meeting... on a train... from Malaga to Grenada, with a lady from Colorado several years ago, set the wheels in motion. She didn't stop talking about walking the Camino and was so enthused by it that we planned then and there to walk it one day... or at least part of it. Further investigation determined that if we walked 100km we would get a certificate at the Cathedral in Santiago. And so our Camino was born...

The bus stopped in Lugo and we climbed out and set off to find connectivity, food and shelter in that order. Having memorised the phrase for 'I need a prepay sim card' getting connected to local data was easily accomplished and then we hopped into a supermarket to buy provisions for tomorrow.

Foreign supermarkets are always a bit of a wonder to me and I could spend hours wandering around, looking at all the different foods available... hunger however had caught up with us and so supermarket lingering was cut to a minimum. Spready cheese, rolls, biscuits and crisps (Sonia insisted on one bit of fruit!) and we hot footed it to our hotel.

I had tried to manage Sonia's expectations about the accomodation I booked, having told her that it got better each day. Bearing in mind we are staying in a hostel tomorrow, hopefully I had set the bar low enough (at least it wasn't camping right?). We navogated our way past the old town walls (pretty cool) and around to a somewhat run down apartment block... once we had circled twice we finally found the entrance. The door opened and we went in.  Formalities sorted and key in hand, we went up and tentatively opened the door....

... and found a pretty nice apartment complete with kitchen, lounge and bedroom. Not bad! Unfortunately Sonia is expecting better as the days go on... oops!

We dumped our stuff and headed out, feeling very light without our rucksacks. The centre of Lugo, through the immense city walls via the Porta de San Pedro and into the charming old town, complete with picturesque squares, old churches and narrow old streets. We found a little restaurant and used both the english and spanish menus to learn or re-learn a few words  ready for use for the rest of the week. 1 massive meal of chicken fillet and chips, all ordered in Spanish despite our waiter trying to speak in English (can't win).

Feeling a little full, we set out back to the hotel, when I noticed a man jogging up on the walls. How the hell did he get up there! We walked round the walls a bit, staring up to see if there was a way up. Whilst we were staring somewhat gormlessly up, a woman approached us and asked us in Spanish if we were trying to find a way up. The resulting yes from us prompted a stream of Spanish directions to which we nodded and smiled and said we understood. Gracias!

In reality, the jist of her directions was enough... and we followed the road round to the left past a magnificent cathedral and found a way up to the walls. It was getting a bit chilly, especially out of the evening sun, so we power walked along the walls for a short while and then found some steps down.

Tourist bit done, we headed back to the hotel to rearrange our packs and chill out a bit ready for tomorrow's little jaunt... 16 ish miles to Ferreira.

So feel free to follow our journey along the Camino from Lugo to Santiago by going to the following link... 

https://maps.findmespot.com/s/J9BX

blogs and photos will be up as usual 😁

Buen Camino!