Camino Portugues Day 11 (The finish!)

Camino Portugues Day 11

Herbon to Santiago de Compostela

Starting km: 229.7

Finishing km: 256.2

Distance walked: 26.5

We hadn't planned for this to be our final day on the Camino.  Even when we left the monastery in the morning, we were planning to just walk 12 or 13km to the final municipal Albergue in Teo, then stop there leaving us with an easy cruise on in to Santiago on day 12.

But it rained most of the morning and, despite this and a few small muddy bits, the walking was actually quite nice.  When we arrived at the Teo Albergue, it was still over two hours until it would open. And it was only about 2.5 hours walk to the place we were considering staying.  So that was that. On we went through surprisingly few suburbs and yet more pleasant forest.

And just as we were arriving in Santiago proper the rain stopped.  On our way into town we saw quite a few other pilgrims, but also lots of Santiagans (doubtless familiar with the passing parade) going about regular life.

With less than 2km left we took a small diversion fr the route to pop into our hostel.  We dropped off our packs and took long hot showers before returning to the road to properly conclude our Camino.

Most of Santiago appeared pretty unremarkable, but as you approach the cathedral the old city begins, and all of the buildings turn into restaurants and shops selling Camino related souvenirs.  We were only about 400m away when we saw the towers of the cathedral for the first time. Minutes later we were in the square in front of it. The sun had come out to welcome us and dozens of other pilgrims, most still with their backpacks, walking clothes and boots still on (we had some of our walking clothes on, but Sarah had changed her shoes and we were both sans packs).  We joined the other pilgrims sitting in the square, basking in the glow of the sun and of having reached the ebd of our roads. Several of our friends from the trail were there, and we passed several more when we finally got up and made our way a few hundred metres further to the pilgrims’ reception office.

There we joined a short queue and received the final stamps in our credencials, closing out our journey.  I got my Compostela (certificate indicating completion of the pilgrimage) and eventually (after some confusion caused by her saying she didn't want the route-and-distance-specific certificate, Sarah got hers as well.

Not entirely surprisingly, they've already suffered a bit, as we went grocery shopping on our way home, but really it's the thoughts and memories that count anyway.

So here we are.  Warm and dry in our hostel sipping celebratory cava and enjoying the end of our Camino.  I'll probably write one final entry tomorrow with a few final Camino memories and reflections, but for now, we're finished!

Wine of the day:

As mentioned before (and implied by the photo below) Lots!