Today would be the last leg of the Portuguese Camino as we headed from Padrón to Santiago de Compostela. The most famous produce of Padrón are its peppers (Galician pementos de Padrón ), which are small green peppers from the Capsicum annum family. They are served fried with olive oil and coarse salt (and are delicious!). Most taste sweet and mild, though some are particularly hot and spicy, which gives its character to the dish and is perfectly captured in the popular “Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non” (Galician for “Padrón peppers, some are hot and some are not”).
One last look at the train to Santiago before we headed off this morning. Due to the weather heating up we decided to leave earlier than our usual 9am. The route today would broadly follow the train line. After a while we passed the Parrish Church at Iria Flavia, the small hamlet so named when the original Irla Flavia became Padrón.
Some small climbing up through small hamlets, past crop fields and a surprise bagpiper at a random crossroads before heading back down a bit beside grapevine’s on narrow pathways.
A public laundry (given the state of the water it doesn’t look like it’s in use anymore!), a short stint beside the track and a quick look in the Igrexa de Escravitude. In 1582 the parish priest of Cruces was about to be crushed by a large chestnut tree during a storm. Thanks to his prayers, the Virgin saved him from death and priest asked to build an image of the Virgin in stone and had it placed in a fountain. In 1732, a sick pilgrim who went to the Hospital of Santiago, when passing by the fountain, begged the Virgin for her healing and was fully healed shortly after. Grateful for this, he donated his belongings so that a sanctuary could begin to build to praise the Virgin who had freed him from her “slavery”. And, thus, in 1852 the temple of the Sanctuary of Slavery was built or Santuario da Escravatitude.
But now the sun, although not fully high in the sky was beating on us and every piece of shade was a nice relief. We crossed the railway again (not even 10 minutes to Santiago from here by train) as we continued our walk past small and larger smallholdings.
Now the promised hill appeared and we climbed up to our highest elevation of the journey so far. Thankfully this was spread over several kilometres and was not one mad steep climb. On the way down we saw a local farmer pulling his hay (he didn’t appear to be impressed with us taking his photo) before we finally saw Santiago in the distance.
One more hill which was a long slog up through Santiago itself before we were in front of the Cathedral to finish our second Camino. We got our certificates and settled for some lunch and a drink in the shade. This was a tough day in the heat (as noted by the relative effort on the strava picture). Tomorrow is a day of sightseeing in Santiago and then we start the Camino Finisterre on Wednesday.
