Category: Camino de Santiago

Thanks to the clocks springing forward, it was still black outside at 8am when I had to leave the hostel. Misty, damp, half-drizzling: it was all a bit anti-climatic. Er, anti-climactic. Well, both, actually. I slipped downhill and along trafficky roads through dreary outskirts, and followed my nose to the cathedral square and my entrance-finale….

The clocks went forward at 2am, when I was fast asleep. When I woke it was nearly seven, ie eight, technically chucking out time from the albergue, though there was no sign of that happening. Which was good, as it was pitch-dark outside and still showery-chilly. When it began to get light I started gingerly…

I had to wait outside the hostel until 8.30, by which time most of the hostelers gone, for the Saturday bloke to come and let my bike out of the garage, having talked his way through the exact purpose of each key in his copious bunch. The morning looked grey but dry. Samos had a…

A pear and banana for breakfast, plus two steaming, frothy glasses of tap water – yes, it was that cold this morning. The day looked like it was spoiling for an argument, gloomy and grey and short-tempered. But it never really came to that. There was, granted, a shower en route out from Ponferrada (which,…

With rain forecast I was a little worried about today’s climb, which involved 700m of ascent. But the weather bots of eltiempo.es also promised me one last day of tailwind, so I’d better use it. A humdrum ride took me into Astorga, an OK looking town with an OK square where I had a fine…

An excellent night’s sleep, thanks to two blankets, the right amount of wine, and silent dormmates. I left around half eight, after a cursory look round Sahagun, off into the sun with the tailwind still pushing me along like dads do with little kids learning to ride. It was joy, pedalling easily and quietly thanks…

Early starts are par for the course of the Camino: the hostel chucks out between 7 and 8, but I was awake and showered well before that anyway. Out, on my bike, free and energised and into the bright but chilly and damp morning. I thought I was following the N120, but found myself heading…

A dawn chorus of sneezes, snores and snoughs in various languages ensured I was up and about by half sixish. I enjoyed a small portion of Korean rice and veg breakfast kindly cooked up by a mature Korean lady. We chatted and I stole a look at their guide, and at the MTB guidebook of…

A day that demonstrated the value of keeping the faith – and I thought I didn’t have enough to justify doing this trip – because at one point it seemed hard going into the wind with much too far to go. But I got there. Maybe there’s more to me than the doubters, such as…

I walked the beginning of the Camino de Santiago from St Jean-Pied-de-Port to Pamplona a few years ago with my my chum Gary. We were distracted by the tapas and some Swiss hikers, and we got no further. I’d wanted to complete it ever since, but on a bike. So here I was at Portal…