Day 9 O Porrino

Saturday 3rd May 2025

We left about 730, not many people around, over the bridge to Spain again! We have 118km to go, finishing in a week! As we walk out of Tui it is really noticeable that there are more pilgrims. Loads of them in fact!

It’s a beautiful day for walking, slightly overcast and cool. We pass by an old Roman bridge and a very impressive pilgrim cut out of stone! There is a lot of water on this part of the walk, so lots of little stone bridges and tracks to keep our feet dry!

Just past that stream is a Guardia civil car and he is stamping people’s Camino passports, which is great! The people behind us mistake them for border crossing checks and proffer their actual passports! Easy mistake as we are just over the border. Round the corner are two men playing Gaelic bagpipes (rather well!). So we get our second stamp in quick succession! Time for a coffee stop, in a lively place with a delightful back garden to sit in, in the sun!

Our walk continues through lively woods and streams. As we get towards O Porrino there is a decision to be made. 5km through an industrial estate or 6km through lovely woodland. I was interested that anyone chose the industrial estate but some did! This is our last day with the backpack and I am feeling it now. We stop for a break at a cafe and discover we still have an hour to go. It feels like a very long hour, especially as we can feel that the rain is going to start soon. The last couple of in we are marching fast to get there!!

At last, the Alburgue!! And not a moment too soon, when we get through the door, there is a downpour outside, thunder and lightening and rain pouring down the street. We were lucky! The place is lovely, bunks are big, with their own light and power plus a curtain!!! Luxury! We are just about the first in so take advantage of this and have a shower and do washing before anyone else turns up.

Later on we take the short walk into town and find an amazing bar! This is the picture of the outside, I couldn’t photograph the inside in a way that did it justice! We also found these broom/flower people in the town swuare, there were about 12 of them, it looked like they had been in a procession at some time. We stopped at the Nomad cafe for dinner, we are in Spain now so lots of restaurants don’t open until 8pm, much too late. This was open so we went in and the food was amazing, some of the best we have had so a lucky find. Back to the hostel for a good nights sleep, or the best we can do while sharing a room with 24 other people!!