Camino Portugues Day 10

Camino Portugues Day 10

Caldas de Reis to Herbon

Starting km: 211.3

Finishing km: 229.7

Distance walked: 18.4

I think this was probably our nicest day's walking in Spain.  It was almost all just through nice trails on fairly new (seeming) forest reserve.

We stopped for our coffee around 10:30. We've done this every day we have a kitchen available to make coffee in the morning, pausing sometime in the final 10km of the day's walk.  Today's spot was under a little covered bridge (next to the older looking stone bridge).

When we left for the day we'd planned to head to the town of Padron.  Part way along I revisited the idea of staying at the monastery in the nearby town of Herbon (I keep wanting to say Hebron).  At first it seemed like it would be impossible, as apparently its opening was delayed until April 17 (4 days hence) this year, but a bit more research indicated that it opened the previous week.

So we took the fairly well signed turnoff from the main Camino and walked 2.5km up the Ulla River. It wasn't open yet, so we went for a wander around the town of Herbon.

One of our favourite tapas in Spain has been Pimentos de Padron.  I'd learned that Padron, where the Camino passes by, is the home of this dish of fried, mildly spicy small green peppers.  But in Herbon we learned that this village, and in fact the Convento Franciscano de Herbon were the exact source of the dish.  We tried our luck in the town pub, which advertised Pimentos on its awning, but all they were serving to the big Sunday afternoon crowd was small tapas of pork and chick pea stew (which was, despite my disappointment at missing out on the peppers) very yummy.

Back at the Monastery, we received a tremendously warm welcome.  The pilgrim beds are in former monastic cells, so each pair has there own tiny bedroom.

In the afternoon brother José gave us a tour of the monastery.  He spoke French and Spanish. Other than Sarah and I, every single person in the tour group was from Germany and spoke English and German.  So somehow I got given the job of traducteur, translating from French to English as we spent half an hour visiting the grounds. The place had functioned variously as convent, seminary, leper colony, monastery and pilgrim hostel.  It had a strong association with proselytism in the new world, and this showed up in the decoration of the church, the legends surrounding it, and even the plants out in the (very large) garden.

The place began its life in the fourteenth century, but the most significant remaining parts are from the 17th (the church and a lot of the monastery) and the early 19th (most of the modern pilgrims’ hostel).

After the tour we had a bit of a break, and then joined the villagers for Palm Sunday Mass.  This was for just about all of the “pilgrims” a case of just watching what everyone else was doing and copying them (including grabbing olive branches on the way in The Mass concluded with a special blessing for all of the peregrinos.  While I'm not a devout Catholic (indeed, I'm not at all religious), it was both affecting and touching to see how seriously the brothers and the local residents took the pilgrimage, and I felt like it gave me a closer connection to its history and heritage.

That night we had a collective dinner, prepared by our hosts at the Albergue.  It was lots of fun to spend the remains of the evening talking with them and the fellow walkers for the third and final time on our Camino.

The generosity and affection of everyone involved in running this Albergue was very infectious, and it was probably my favourite place we stayed on the Camino.  It's interesting to observe that (at least with me and the couple others I talked to about this) that the Albergues which are operated most out of passion and love for the Camino, and request donations (donativos) probably end up (for a variety of reasons) doing better financially than those that simply charge a fixed fee.

We had a wonderful sleep in our cell, thoroughly enjoying our final night on the Camino.

Wine of the day:

House (or should that be Abbey?) Red with dinner.  It actually wasn't the best wine we've had in Spain, but the company and atmosphere made it.