Requejo de Sanabria

This is one of those place names we find it impossible to pronounce, as the receptionist at the Parador made clear to me this morning. I had an eerily comfortable night there, a complete contrast to "normal" life on the Camino. The breakfast buffet would have been sufficient to feed every pilgrim walking the Via de la Plata from Seville to Santiago at the present time, I´d guess.

As I prepared to launch forth with my rucksack, the rain, which had looked intermittent from my balcony, started to pour down with a vengeance, and there seemed to be no wind to blow the cloud along as in previous days. So, heeding the various health experts I´d consulted about my leg - I always enjoy that phrase you read, "He´s been advised by his doctors..." - I decided to give myself a further rest day, and caught a taxi the 11kms. here this morning. En route, I saw, battling through the rain, the Australian with whom I´ve walked from time to time since Zamora, so we stopped and gave her a lift too. (She thought she was about to be abducted.)

The economy of Requejo must have benefitted considerably from the work on the new Madrid-Vigo AVE line: you can see the enormous tunnel entrance in course of construction over to the left of the village. For lunch, alongside a dozen railway workers in their yellow jackets, I had Caldo Gallego for the first time, a rather delicious soup, followed by trout cooked with bits of ham - as tasty as anything provided yesterday by the Parador, at less than a fifth of the price.

Tomorrow, it´s a total of 19kms. to Lubian, with a climb of 320m over the 10kms. to the (1360m) pass at the Portillo de Padornelo. Because of the AVE works and the rain, we are advised to walk on the road - comparatively boring, but then the scenery is magnificent and there is next to no traffic.