Camino Primitivo - Etapa 7, Padrón to Cádavo Beira

19.4.2013

22.5km

The Knights of St John governed Padrón until 1874, and this is the grave of some dead Templar by the village church. 

An early start from Padrón.

After La Mesa, on the way to Grandas de Salime, red tile rooves became scarce, with big, roughly-rounded slates instead. Now, in the Galician countryside and villages, nearly all the buildings stone (mostly gray granite) and slate. Just magical. I expected to see Hobbits emerge from this village.

Galicia is very windy, and Spain has invested heavily in windmills.

Hospital de Montouto, founded in 1360 and in use until the early 20th century. 

The Way, toward Paradavella.

Like in the castros, ancient Galician stone buildings often were circular. Few examples of these traditional-style buildings - called palloza - exist, but this is a good one in Paradevella.

Blue skies and thorn bushes.

Gawking at the stone houses like this one in A Lastra, I missed a marker, and walked 30 minutes in the wrong direction along a nice gravel road. 

When I realized my error, I looked around and saw the trail cresting a hilltop in the distance. I took a compass heading, and started climbing up through and over the heather. This photo is about a third of the way up to the trail, where the heather ended and the dense pine forest began. At this point, I began to think this may be a bit foolhardy, but continuing to hack my way up was the best option by then. It added about an hour and a half to the day, but was a great unexpected adventure. 

Though I stayed in a pension in Cávado, I spent the whole evening at the albergue with my amigos españoles (as well as a German guy from Bonn, a Danish woman who last year hiked the whole Appalachian trail, and two Finnish women who had started the Camino del Norte at Pamplona, came down to the Primitivo at Sebrayo, and planned to continue out to Finisterre and up the coast to A Coruña, camping). It was my last evening with them. At Lugo the next day, I will stay for two days' rest and sightseeing.

L to R: José Juan Guerrero Ortega, from Cadíz; Vicente Bautista, from Murcia; and Jose Beltrán Abellán, also from Murcia.