Wednesday September 12 Fonte Diaz

September 12, 2018

Wednesday September 12 Fonte Diaz

Paased this on our walk into town..not sure what it was..or had been!

The town we are in tonight is so small that it probably won’t show up on the map, but we are 30 minutes’ drive east of Santiago de Compostela, ready to drive into town tomorrow.

It was an interesting start today, we had a really quiet night with our neighbouring vans but about mid-morning when we were getting ready to leave, along with the others, we had a visit from the local constabulary. They were very nice but explained that we should park within the parking lines, and not across them! The problem was if we parked within them we would be too long. But they were okay when we said we were moving on!

Continued on our way which was taking us inland and away from the coast. We really can’t get over the Spanish roads in this area, the are just so good, very wide with sweeping corners and huge bridges. And there is hardly any traffic on them. A dream to drive on. Pulled into a parking area for a coffee stop overlooking a huge reservoir, Lagoa des Ponts. A beautiful area, and obviously extremely popular during the summer holiday season by the number of temporary bars along the shore. But the holiday season is over and they were pulling down structures, even though temperatures are still in the mid 20’s.

We were heading to the town of Portomarin and after quite a bit of motorway driving, sections of which were deserted, we were onto country roads passing through small villages. Called into on for some fresh bread, and it was just like the corner store in the country.

Arrived in Portomarin and realised that we were right on the Camino trail. There were so many people walking through the town with packs on their backs and scallop shells dangling. The scallop shell is the iconic symbol of the Camino and there are many legends about why it is. Somehow the GPS co-ordinates and Jilly got at odds and we ended up in a very “suck your breath in” place driving through the centre of town. Kept going, not looking at anyone until we found a place we could pull over in, and while Ian waited in the van, I set off on foot to see where the Aire was and how to get into it. Finally found it but realised that it didn’t have easy access, so sadly flagged it and continued on out of town. Just couldn’t get over the number pilgrims stopping for lunch.

We found a spot to pull over and had our lunch and then relooked at Park4night as wanted to find a place that was close to Santiago. Fonte Diaz was only 5 minutes from the highway, just perfect. As we drove along the N547, the main road heading into Santiago we just could not believe how many pilgrims we passed, literally hundreds, all with packs on the backs and shells dangling. All along the route there are eating places and accommodation. The pilgrimage is certainly much bigger than we ever expected.

Pulled into a very nice clean quiet spot, the only campers here. Put our feet up for a few hours then walked the 10 minutes into town as found they had several restaurants. This is heartland Spain, nothing touristy here. The first bar we called into didn’t have food but she sent us onto another place in town. Just a small place and very friendly, no English though so out came Google translate. We had some very good local white wine and then a pub type meal, nothing special but very nice. It was a fun night.