Walked from: Castroverde

Walked to: Lugo

Distance: 22km

When: 20 October 2019

I had an entirely inappropriate fit of the giggles this afternoon in the cathedral in Lugo; I suspect the half a bottle of red wine and the liquor chaser I had as part of my late lunch may have had something to do with it. I was in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Big Eyes, and it immediately triggered a memory of a stupid 1980s TV programme in the UK, with its constant references to the picture of Madonna with the Big Bobbies. Highly immature, a quintessentially English reference and, as I said, brought on by afternoon drinking. That aside, Lugo Cathedral is quite lovely – I recommend a visit if you happen to be in the area, even if the colour scheme of the upstairs museum reminds me of a bar I used to frequent in west London in the late 90s.

Today was a good day. A couple of minutes aside, it didn’t rain on today’s walk, although I donned preventative waterproofs for the first part of the morning. I met a new Camino friend, Aurelio, as I was leaving Castroverde, and walked all the way to Lugo with him, treading beautiful forest paths, and passing a 500 year old church and a couple of awfully old – and very big – chestnut trees. Today’s itinerary included a delightful, and entirely unexpected, cake/hot chocolate stop along the way at Vilar, where the albergue owners couldn’t have been more welcoming; if only I had known it existed yesterday, I would have walked the extra five kilometres from Castroverde to spend the day in their beautiful farmhouse.

On the final approach to the old town in Lugo, where I am staying in a hostel that has communal showers (shudder) I passed a sign telling me I only have 100km left to walk to Santiago. I’m practically at the bar crawl part of my trip. Even better, it turns out that a lot of people I met on my first night in the Camino are in Lugo tonight, and are walking tomorrow. It’s shaping up for quite a fiesta in Santiago on Friday night!