Final stage
After yesterday’s great dinner and a good rest, I set off at dawn towards Santiago de Compostela. The idea is to get there as soon as possible, so I pedal hard and stop only as much as I need to. Only a few kilometres separate me from my destination now, 55 kilometres that will fly by.
Now that I’ve joined the Camino Francés, the French Way, I come across people every few minutes. The Camino Primitivo is less busy, and at this time of year even less so. The cold, the rain and the toughness put people off, but the Francés is another story. Every so often I come across a group of pilgrims, and I no longer have that feeling of solitude I had on the Primitivo.
The morning is cold but sunny; soon the sun starts to warm things up, and only the shady stretches of woodland remind me that it’s winter.
The paths are easy and pretty until a few kilometres from Santiago de Compostela, where it’s one minor road after another. And so, almost without realising, I arrive in Santiago.
My first Camino is over. All that’s left is to celebrate with seafood and Ribeiro wine; we are in Galicia, after all. It’s been four days, cold and hard, but very, very beautiful.
