Today was surprisingly easy as the chief navigator had declared the ride as a 60km one, but when we were within 1 km of the Cathedral, we had only done 49km! So a quick revision was made, and it was an earlier day than expected.

Today, while again having some very stiff climbs, was very enjoyable indeed. We have completed our first leg, only one leg and two arms to go!

It was a bit foggy at the start so hi-viz was donned. Nice vine training on the right, difficult to tell from pic but these are being trained into a long porch shape over the adjacent field. The pic also shows our chief navigator in the distance.

We saw many more farms with the cattle in barns, the smell being rather over-powering at times.

Nice views again.

We dropped into many villages like this, a lovely spot.

We met a Spanish rider. I’ll call him Bilbao, as he lives there, and we failed to tease his name out of him. We had come across this jolly chap three times before. A really nice bloke who constantly eased into many conversations as to how hot it was in southern Spain (we had previously explained our route to him). In fact even after we said our goodbyes today, he dropped the same message. This message has now been registered and our planning team are considering our options for southern Spain. Bilbao suggested the coast line, but we had specifically excluded this on the grounds of avoiding the ‘British’ towns there.

Today’s ride included some fairly swift descents. Being of the more stout build I rarely reach my comfortable terminal velocity, so need to apply brakes. This ranges from a few snubs to WTF full on braking. So we were surprised today when Bilbao, between explaining how very hot it was in southern Spain, explained that he lost all braking and had to use his feet. I hope we bump into him again – a nice chap.

Weaving our way through narrow streets of Santiago de Compostela, we caught a glimpse of the cathedral up ahead. We also started to see the walking pilgrims again, after our EV3 route took us away from the walking track today.

Our EV3 route was advising us to take a circuitous route. We knew ‘better’ and headed straight for the target, and then lots of stairs! But it was worth it as we came across a bagpipe player! Yip, in the middle of the city, this bloke was banging out unrecognisable tunes on his pipes! Didn’t expect that.

On arrival at the cathedral, the end of the pilgrimage, there were many pilgrims in the plaza. Some in quiet contemplation, others mildly excited and some groups absolutely ecstatic, sort of winning the lottery ecstatic. Some just sunbathed, or perhaps they had passed out. Bearing in mind we had seen the arrival of pilgrims at many towns, the numbers seemed a tad high, the pilgrimmetric flow was huge, so I remain unconvinced they had all completed the walk.

A monk just nipping back from the bar:

This is my blog office.

We met a Canadian chap who offered to take our pic. Think he was called wiss, ciss, fizz or something like that. He had cycled across France and the whole Camino Frances. We shared a few stories. Spoke about cycle touring across Canada, bear attacks etc. His view was that the rail system was not developed to carry bicycles, and bear attacks are just about chance or luck.

Wiss took our picture:

Anyway we are both chuffed that we have completed this leg and now look forward to some R&R on our rest day. Well after a rather nice dinner. This was our pudding – a sweet crepe with white chocolate ganache, fruits of the forest, and strawberry ice-cream: