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Finishing the Camino – Santiago de Compostela
Finishing the Camino in Santiago - we visited the shrine of St. James, and gave the saint a hug before taking in the pilgrim's mass; then on to Porto!
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Camino Day 12 – Padron to Santiago
Camino Day 12 - Padron to Santiago - a day that started off great, but was derailed a bit by dehydration, but then finished at our goal - Santiago!
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Camino Day 11 – Caldas des Reies to Padrón
Camino Day 11 - Caldas des Reies to Padrón - a beautiful day with a little rain, a friendly church, a laundromat victory, and a feast of Galician cheeses!
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Camino Day 10 – Pontevedra to Caldas des Reies
Camino Day 10 - Pontevedra to Calda des Reies - a day of sun and showers, and highs and lows, and beautiful healing hot springs.
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Camino Day 9 – Redondela to Pontevedra
7.5 hours walking, 23.4 km walked A little later than everyone else in the hostel, we got up and hoisted urpacks on our backs for 7:30am, two bleary-eyed peregrinas making a stop at the lovely O Cafe a Vila, for a coffee and whatever that cakey thing is. I wish we could’ve stayed longer, but the road was calling, and so after about 20 minutes in the nicest cafe, we got on our way. The top middle picture is a lavanderia, spots built in every village so that women could gather to wash clothes in the time before most houses locally had running water. They’re mostly deserted now, except for…
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Camino Day 8 – Porrino to Redondela
6 hours walking, 17.6 km walked(Walking times includes stops for meals and breaks) Because we both got a pretty good night’s sleep for a change, we had a bit of a slow start, stopping a block away from the albergue for a quick coffee and croissant at Restaurante Paso a Nivel, a place whose main recommendation was that it was open, but which turned out to be pretty good. Getting on the road around 8am, we’d only been walking about an hour when we hit another milestone – the Camino waymarker that tell you you have less than 100 km to go before Santiago. The next stages are the most…
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Camino Day 10 – Pontevedra to Caldas des Reies
Je suis fou a Paris
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Camino Day 7 – Tui to Porriño
5 hours walking, 19.8 km walked(Walking times includes stops for meals and breaks) Getting up as dawn was breaking over Tui, we took a few minutes as we were gathering our (mostly dry) laundry and getting ready to go back on the road to take in the beauty of this albergue and the views around it. I really love this little courtyard; we’d sat on the stone bench the night before, watching the barn swallows swoop and dive in and out of their nests in the eves of the neighbouring cathedral. As we set out, the sunrise over the Minho lit everything in a golden glow. Breakfast – coffee, fresh-squeezed…
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Camino Day 6 – Rubiaes to Tui
6 hours walking (there’s a time change between Portugal and Spain, so you lose an hour when you cross the border), 22.5 km walked(Walking times includes meals and breaks) After an okay night’s sleep, we got up and back over to Café São Sebastião (where we’d had our beer the night before) for “breakfast” – two pain au chocolate and coffee. It’s such a lovely spot, and so cheerful, and so convenient, that we were glad to spend a little time there again. But before long, the road was calling us, and we hitched on our packs and got moving. Right past Rubiaes, we crossed a Roman bridge, Pont Romana…
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Camino Day 5 – Ponte de Lima to Rubiaes
7.5 hours walking (part of it over a goddamned mountain), 21.9 km walked(Waling time includes meals and breaks) We’d had such a good day on the road to Ponte de Lima, and liked the albergue so much, that we’d gone to bed in a great mood and had anticipated a good night’s sleep. But once again, it was memorably bad. The beautiful wooden floors creaked, and someone got up in the night about every twenty minutes. We were sharing the room with a tour group who were walking together, and they got up before dawn, having conversations, packing, and generally making too much noise. After twenty minutes of that, one…
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Camino Day 4 – Barcelos to Ponte de Lima
15-minute train ride from Barcelos to Tamel train station 7.5 hours walking, 26.2 km walkedThe walking hours are above from 7:30am, when we finished our coffee at the cafe near the Tamel train station, to 3pm, when we arrived in Ponte de Lima, and include stops for a rest and for lunch. It was just before dawn when we woke up to start our day; we were the first ones up, and crept out of the room with our gear to get ready in the common rooms (which is the decent thing to do when you’re sleeping in a room of ten or more). We were rushing a bit, worried…
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Camino Day 3 – Rates to Barcelos
5 hours walking, 20.3 km walked(Walking time includes breaks, breakfast/lunch, etc) With two full days of walking under our belt, and not much sleep the first night, you’d think we’d be ready to sleep through anything. One of our roommates – half of a really lovely Irish couple – warned everyone in advance that he was a loud snorer, and offered ear plugs. But I don’t think anyone was prepared for this kind of snoring – sort of a sound like a dragon fighting with and then consuming a passenger jet as it was taking off. I’d declined the ear plugs, but Sammi had some spares, and so I did…
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Camino Day 2 – Vila Cha to Rates
4.5 hours walking, 20 km walked Our first night on the Camino, we should have been tired enough to sleep like a pair of logs, but no, it wasn’t to be. The latecomers on the mattress on the floor were noisy, on top of being loud snorers, and sometime around 5am our meditations on how annoyed we were with those people were interrupted by the very early risers, who for some reason always have more zippers to zip and unzip and plastic bags to crinkle than anyone else. By 7:30am we were back out on the boardwalk along the Atlantic Coast, another grey, damp day, walking through spray coming off…
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Camino Day 1 – Porto to Vila Cha
7.5 hours walking time from Porto to Labruge, + 10 min cab ride to Vila Cha, because the albergue was full. 26.9 km walked(walking time includes stops for breakfast/lunch and rest breaks) Our first day on the Camino started early for us, but maybe not early for most pilgrims – we’re just not morning people. Waking up at about 7:40am in the Blue Socks Hostel in Porto was cosy and comfortable, and didn’t make you want to leave immediately. We’d pre-paid for the breakfast buffet, so took a quick trip down to the crypt and ate fresh croissants, fruit, cereal, and something coffee-adjacent. Stashing some apples and croissants for later,…
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Dutch Oven Campfire Bread
I like camping, and being out in the woods; it’s energizing to be surrounded by trees and water and far away from city life (which I also love, but need a break from sometimes). When I was a kid, we used to go to Silent Lake Provincial Park to camp as a family, and we all love it there – particularly because the lake is closed to motorized vehicles, and it’s really peaceful with just canoes and kayaks exploring the lake. This year, my mom finally organized us into renting one of Silent Lake’s yurts for a few nights, and we headed up in early July. There are lots of…
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Preserved Lemons
Eight years ago, I travelled alone to Morocco and spent a month with no reservations or plans, moving from place to place as I liked and enjoying Moroccan culture, food, and affordable, comfortable railways. The first time I tried Preserved Lemons was in Meknes, in a restaurant overlooking the Place Hedim, opposite the Bab Mansour. I ordered Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons, and I swear it came with at least one full preserved lemon and the most succulent chicken I’ve ever eaten (see picture below!). As I watched small crowds gather around musicians performing in the square and sipped mint tea, I remember thinking that it was one of the…
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Solo in Morocco
I spent a month Solo in Morocco in November, 2010, and prior to travelling, I did a fair amount of research on the country. So many people were so helpful in answering my questions; I owe a lot to the Thorn Tree Travel forum, my Rough Guide, and WikiTravel, as well as individual bloggers. Here I’ve brought together some of my experiences and observations, in the hope that they’ll be as helpful to other travellers. I wrote it right after I returned, to give back to the community on Thorntree that had been so helpful to me, but recently a lot of people have been talking to me about Morocco, so I thought…
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2014: Shining like a National Guitar
In my year-end wrap-up for 2012, I wrote the following: I’ve cut my commitments down to almost nothing in preparation for – well, I don’t know exactly. But if something comes along and I need to leap, I’ve got nothing tying me to where I am. I could go tomorrow. And I want to. Less than a month later, I was scrambling to find somewhere to live in Toronto, and scrambling to wrap up my remaining commitments in Peterborough, as I leapt into a new job and a new life in a new city. Despite my belief that I was ready to go, I wasn’t – it was hard. Leaving…
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Lentils with Fennel and Sausage
My sister Cassie and I visited Paris last Spring, and by the time we’d gotten from Charles de Gaulle to our hotel in Montmartre and thrown our bags in our room, we were starving. We struck out looking for someplace that would satisfy both me and my vegetarian sister, and found this little corner restaurant with arborite tables and a friendly atmosphere and some vegetarian options on the menu. The waiters were super-nice (as was almost everyone in Paris), complimenting my pathetic attempts at speaking French, and my meal of lentils with fennel and sausage completely floored me. I love lentils in just about every way they can be served,…
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Je suis fou a Paris
Paris: a city that’s , surprisingly, pretty much as good as people say it is. My sister Cassie and I got a last-minute deal on air and hotel for seven days in Paris at the end of March, and we jumped on it. While we were there, the sun shone every day in a picture-perfect blue sky, the temperature stayed steadily around the 18C mark, the flowers were blooming and the grass was green. We walked or took the Metro everywhere, saw most of the things we wanted to see, and really packed our days full of some of the best things that the city has to offer visitors. I…
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My First Hammam
My trip through Morocco has been terrific so far, with many serendipitous encounters and lots (and lots, and lots) of interesting, friendly new people. Last night at my Fez guest house, Pension Dar Bou Inania, I met an American woman who’s also traveling solo. Melissa joined myself and some other Canucks for breakfast at Cafe Clock (my home-away-from-home in Fez), and asked me over pancakes and fresh-squeezed orange juice if I’d be interested in joining her at the Hammam this afternoon. I’d tried to get to a hammam with some other travel friends in Meknes, but had missed the appointment, so I was happy to find a companion for our first…
