Stage 11: Pontevedra - A Armenteira

This morning, we had a rather late start - we met for breakfast at 8 in Pontevedra and thus started the day relaxed. Shortly after starting, it began to rain, so we unpacked our rain gear (which turned out to be worth it 😁). We shared the first part of the route with many other peregrinos (& tourigrinos - that's what we call the pilgrims who have their luggage transported from A to B 😅), all following the classic route to Santiago. The last stages get very crowded here. Therefore, we decided to take the spiritual variant (blue route in the picture), which is significantly less frequented and much more beautifully located.

After the first few kilometers, we veered off the classic route. Today, we focused on Stage 1 of the spiritual route, which led us to A Armenteira.

Our first stop at a café provided us with coffee, orange juice, tortilla, omelet, and small sweet snacks. The next kilometers to Combarro were characterized by several small ups and downs, until we finally arrived in the small fishing village. There, we could watch the locals collecting mussels, as it was low tide. At the supermarket, we stocked up on some supplies for breakfast/snacks tomorrow, since there are no shops at our destination. After another short break at the bakery, we were rested enough to tackle the big ascent of over 400 meters in elevation today. This stretched over about 6 km, making it a bit more bearable. Nevertheless, we were all very glad to finally reach the top.

After a brief rest at the viewpoint, we soon headed back down the mountain, with about 3 km left to our accommodation. After a solid 23 km and over 700 cumulative meters of elevation, we arrived at our destination around 4 PM, quite exhausted and with tired legs, and then went to a nearby restaurant to enjoy a delicious meal.

The Airbnb is a welcome change for all of us and pure luxury - comfortable beds, a living room (with TV 😁), kitchen, washing machine... all just for us!

Here we relaxed for the evening and planned the next days, booked accommodations and transfers, etc.

I also finally booked my return flight - the flight from Porto back to Stuttgart is on Thursday. Until then, we/I will still experience quite a bit.

Now it's time for some sleep - as the comfortable beds are worth it 🙂