The Big Walk

To the hills – Day 11

I’ve adapted to the ‘V’ shaped bed; I slept like a log in our attic last night. It certainly beats a noisy kitchen floor. A peaceful river valley and shady lanes bring us to Samos, the site of a great monastery. This massive complex once housed five hundred Benedictine monks, but today only a handful remain. A monk in a black habit, a towering giant of a man, shows us round together with four other (real) pilgrims. He speaks Spanish very slowly and we manage to pick up some of the history of the place. There are two cloisters, one classical in style, the other gothic, both filled with abundant plants and trees. In the gallery above there are modern frescoes all the way round the walls depicting the life of St Benedict. It turns out that the monastery was all but destroyed in a great fire a hundred years ago, before being restored by the fascist dictator General Franco. His portrait at the reopening ceremony is still displayed – proudly? – on the walls.

The narrowing valley takes us through rich woodland until reaching San Cristabo do Real, a tiny, dilapidated village where the silence is oppressive. It looks like nothing has happened here for centuries, the dirt track road enclosed by crumbling, ancient wooden framed houses with projecting galleries upstairs. Not all the houses are inhabited, and the place appears to be desperately poor – is this really Western Europe? I didn’t know such places existed.

Beyond, the valley itself takes on a more rugged countenance, with rough and rocky hillsides beginning to enclose the pastoral views. We reach Triacastella in time for our late lunch, followed by a siesta in a smart private pilgrim hostel. Tomorrow we shall climb into the Sierra dos Ancares, the first mountains of our journey.