Piñor

May 4, 2022

Another days of about eight hundred meters of climbing that left us pretty knackered in the end even though we covered such a short distance. Much of it on the N-525, dreadful to start off with but much quieter later on, with a few forays onto quieter roads and dirt tracks in places where we could ride on the Camino.

A view of the Roman bridge across the Río Miño in Ourense at the start of the ride.

Some quieter tracks off the N-525 kept us sane.

A bridge dating back to the thirteenth century on one of the quieter sections.

I think Leigh took one look at the climb ahead of her and sat down.

We have seen a lot of these constructions in Galicia. I'm not sure what they can be. Some has crosses on them suggesting some religious significance but mostly they look like chicken coops.

We arrived at the Restaurante Hostal Ateneo near Piñor to enjoy an enormous lunch. Three courses with some great Pan de Cea and washed down with a beer and a bottle of local wine. This was enough to effect a good afternoon sleep, something of which I was in need.

Pan de Cea is a sourdough bread produced in San Cristóbal de Cea about ten kilometers from here. Both the fermentation and cooking time are quite long and the bread is baked in a wood oven over low heat.

The Galician language, also known as Gallego, is a Western Ibero-Romance language closely related to Portugese and it is now co-official with Spanish in Galicia. The majority of folk here seem to speak it and most of the signs we see are in Gallego. Even the packaging of commonly used goods in the shops are in Gallego.

After my afternoon sleep a smaller supper after eight thirty seemed quite civilized except we ate far too much again despite turning down two of the courses on offer. The bill was quite simple - room plus lunch plus supper. It seems it made no difference how much we ate or drank, the price was fixed.

We are now two days away from completing our pilgrimage but there are still a lot of Galician hills between us and Santiago. Today's food will hopefully have filled our tanks enough for us to handle them.

Today's ride: 33 km (20 miles)
Total: 1,440 km (894 miles)

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