Villafranca del Bierzo to O'Cebreiro
We sent Jarrod off to O'Cebreiro walking around 29km.
Roz and I took a taxi to Vega de Valarce. We are trying to avoid the road walking so we only had a 12km day but it is straight up.It was a cute little town.
With cows right along the road.
A very square church.
This pictures do not do this justice. It is breathtakingly beautiful.
Jarrod was just sitting outside our albergue absorbing the atmosphere. Our new favourite place.
With cows right along the road.
And a castle on the hill.
It had been raining so there were little waterfalls everywhere and walking along here was kind of like Millstream.
For some reason this part of Spain has built their highways way in the sky. Each of these are single lanes going in different directions.
So pretty. Which is what this turned out to be. Beautiful.
More cows.
The style of the churches is starting to change. Inside is more humble too. Most of these churches are closed so I took pictures through the door window.
And we started to climb. From Herrerias to La Faba, about 3km it was straight up with switch backs through chestnut and hazelnut trees. There was a gentleman who was picking chestnuts at one of the corners who pointed to my knee and then made the very steep sign. As I was making my way up I kept saying, "Roz really wanted to do this, Roz really wanted to do this". She did stop at one point and a chestnut struck her on the head. Good thing she had a hat on. 315 m elevation change in 3km straight up.
We made it to La Faba. I kept thinking I wasn't going to make it if there were 3 sections like that.
There are horses that take people up and down this steep part. This horse decided to stop for a snack before heading back down.
We stopped for lunch here and discovered I had left my good glasses at the last town. After some anxious moments I was able to go the restaurant and ask, with Google translate, if they would be able to phone the place I thought I had left them and see if they were there. They were. After some negotiating via Google translate, we came up with a plan to have a cab bring them up at 5pm. I suspected they were coming up that way anyways given the specific time. Cost 20 euros
So we climbed some more. But it is such a beautiful valley.
We made it to Laguna. It was just a few farms and cows. Another 230 m elevation change over 2 km but not as steep.
And we climbed some more. This one not as steep.
We have officially crossed into Galacia province. The province of rain, hence the green, and good food especially seafood.
We continued to climb.
And we arrived in O'Cebreiro. Last elevation change of 150m over 2.5 km not super steep.
O'Cebreiro is a unique little village. It has houses called pallozas. They are pre-roman celtic designed and are round or oval with granite or slate walls about 1.7 m tall with thick thatched roofs.
There are usually 3 rooms. One for the animals, one for the heads of family and a big room centered around the hearth.
There are 9 preserved and one museum. Such cool buildings. I wish we had been able to go into one. I would definitely return here if the opportunity came up.
This church, Inglesia de Santa Maria Real, dates from the 9th century and is the oldest church directly associated with the pilgrim way. This is also the resting place of Don Elias Valina Sampedro, the parish priest who spent so much of his life preserving the integrity of the Camino. It was his idea to mark the route with yellow arrows and restore the monastery to hostels.
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