Day 7: Tui to Redondela

This would be our longest walk - almost 35km/22mi. Some people break this stage into two parts, but we didn't have any extra time in our schedule. Besides the length, the day had two challenges. One was getting through Porriño. The other was a climb in the afternoon. We decided to take our time with plenty of breaks.

Fortunately, the weather had cooled quite a bit, so this long day was fairly pleasant. It would have been much harder to do a long day like this one on the cobblestones in Portugal. But Spain's surfaces are much nicer!

We started out walking through nice farmland and forests.

We found the Germans again.

A family had set up a nice snack shop in their yard and offered fruit and goodies for a "donativo."

With less than 110km remaining,

we enjoyed more beautiful pathways.

Our plan was to take an alternate route around Porriño rather than make what we had heard was a rather boring trek through an industrial area and the city itself. For some reason, there is a bit of a battle about this. Someone keeps painting over the arrows for the alternate path. Even though we had picked up a brochure that had directions for the nicer route, we didn't find it.

There were some really good things about taking the traditional route through town. It provided a change from all of the "nature" we had been seeing.

We also met a guard dog.

Soon after we entered the long (about two miles) straight stretch through the industrial park, we caught up with some peregrinos from Scotland. Talking with them made this part of the day enjoyable.

We stopped for our standard break then headed into Porriño.

We were now inside 100km to go.

Allie found another exercise park.

After walking through a nice part of town, we again found ourselves in the beautiful countryside.

A characteristic sight in Galicia is a structure called a hórreo. We saw them in farmyards, next to kitchens and sometimes just standing as decorations. Traditionally, hórreos were for storing grain - usually corn - while keeping it off of the wet ground and safe from rodents.

The last part of this stage included another climb. We started at 50m and reached 235m at the peak - a climb of about 600 ft. After awhile, we stopped for a snack in Mos and found the Swedes.

Then we continued the climb.


The weather was changing, and rain was coming. That gave us cool and pleasant conditions for the remainder of the day's walk.

After reaching the summit of the climb, we could see Redondela in the distance. It would be a steep descent.

We passed some interesting houses (and dogs).

We stayed in an apartment hotel, Apartamentos Alvear Suites, in Redondela. This was a good choice. There was a super mercado nearby. We had a washing machine in our apartment. We had two rooms for sleeping. It was very clean, very nice, and the Camino passed right in front of our building.

After we arrived at the hotel, it started to rain - the first of our entire trip. We had fun walking through rain to dinner - pizza!

Today:
Distance:    34.7km / 21.7mi
Walk time:  6:42
Stop time:   2:08
Avg. pace:  11:35/km / 18:32/mi
Ascent:       1111 ft
Descent:     1209 ft
Weather was cool with a high of about 24C (75F) - cloudy in the morning and late afternoon, sunny in the middle

Progress:
Distance:    158.1km / 98.8mi
Walk time:  30:49
Avg. pace:  11:42/km / 18:43/mi
Ascent:       6605 ft
Descent:     6863 ft

Credencial: