A Coruña to Ferrol to Neda

We woke in A Coruña this morning to the sound of sea gulls and the waning of last night’s revelry. The Spanish certainly know how to dance the night away! We walked to the bus station to see about a bus to Ferrol and found ourselves on the Camino route leaving the city. We love the way that amid all the signage and information in a city, the Camino signage has its place.

It turned out that a bus to Ferrol was leaving in another hour, so we had time for breakfast before boarding. We enjoyed the hour and a half trip - the bus stopping pretty frequently to pick up and disembark passengers - and we reached Ferrol about 12.30pm. Ferrol was the birth place of Franco. We didn’t see much sign of him being commemorated, though we also may have missed the main square.

Though our Camino Ingles guide book hadn’t been effusive about Ferrol, we really liked the feel of it and had some lovely interactions with locals.

We reached the pilgrim office just after 1pm - we thought it closed at 2pm but it had already shut. But the man looking after it realised what we’d come for and reopened to give us our stamp.

We had a lovely salad lunch at a bar just next to the pilgrim office and on the edge of the route.

And then we were off. We picked up another stamp for our pilgrim passports at a church where some Third Order Franciscans made us very welcome. And then passed this chap, who seemed from behind a fellow pilgrim but seemed a little more sinister face on.

The route out of Ferrol passed through some lovely parks and followed the contour of the inlet.

The tide was out, leaving small boats marooned on sand and creating mud flats on which these two guys seemed animatedly to be discussing something to do with molluscs! (Mind you, most Spanish conversations seem animated!)

Boats small and large continued to draw our attention.

 Not a bad location for the parish church - although with the new garden work at St Ninian’s our own water feature is coming along!

As the kilometres stretched behind us from Ferrol, the way meandered through a more rural, domestic landscape. 

The Monasterio San Martin.

The ‘goat of the day’. This herd was being watched over by the most enormous sheep (goat) dog, so we didn’t linger too long in case he decided we were a threat!

And, you guessed it, ‘piglet of the day’!

After just over 14km (plus the walking in A Coruña and Ferrol this morning) we reached this bridge, with the albergue at Neda just beyond.

There is a major festival here tomorrow and we arrived to the sound (loud) of music in rehearsal. It’s probably good that the main event is tomorrow, otherwise we’d be getting very little sleep - though we do have a full albergue, so we’ll see in any case.

Overall, it’s been a great day. We’ve enjoyed this first stage very much, and Neil is starting to feel back to his road-hardened best, with hardly any swelling in his ankle, the hand unbandaged, blisters largely healed and very little pain in the rib cage! Who would true valour see, let them come hither!!

Buen Camino,

Neil and Sarah