SPAIN - The new pilgrims

"Father forgive us for we have turned in to St Jean Snobs"

Today we got an early train from Monforte de Lemos to Sarria.  Sarria is about 110km from Santiago on the Camino and to get your certificate (your Compostela) at the end you have to complete at least 100km of walking. As Sarria has good road and rail connections it is a popular place to start your Camino.

Trouble is that here there are no mountains of Ben Nevis proportions, no walking up and down the steep slopes of the vineyards in Rioja and for those doing the whole thing, no walking for days through the endless grain fields of the Spanish plain (the bit we missed out).  In fact judging by our first day west of Sarria, it is a nice walk through countryside very similar to that in south west England.

Familiar looking countryside

Now we were aware that there is a bit of "them and us" mentality between the hard core pilgrims and the Sarria to Santiago pilgrims - in fact there is graffiti that says "Jesus didn't start the Camino in Sarria" - and now I have to confess we are feeling this too.

The problem is that we are no longer a group of people of all ages battling over the Pyrenees and supporting each other as we go. The "world and his wife" is here, which means more litter, queues of people along the trail - half of them on their phones - loud voices spoiling the countryside.  They are stopping after 4 hours of walking to tend their new blisters - don't they realise we have been walking for days? They are wearing lycra outfits when they clearly have a figure that should never be anywhere near lycra. And above all they are SO SLOW - we have been overtaking large numbers of people half our age and more!

We started in St Jean - we are proper pilgrims!

These stores are for storing corn on the cob

We are now less than 100km from Santiago

Staying tonight in Portomarin by an area of the River Mino that was dammed to form a reservoir