25th May 2024 Triacastela to Samos

The leftover tortillas patatas was reheated in the microwave downstairs but there was no coffee and, as there wasn’t much in the way of leftovers, we decided to head off down to the shop I had spent a lot of the day in last time as this was the day Steve needed to go to the hospital.  It also meant that today was a new day for me – some of the first un-walked kilometres for me so I was quite excited to get the day underway.

Down the main street to the coffee shop and another serve of toast with jam plus a couple of coffees.  It was a bit of a strange weather day again making it difficult to decide what to wear.  If you wore too much you then needed to take the pack off and put any excess into it before hitching yourself back up again, getting it all in the right place and getting the straps adjusted so it wasn’t something you did unless you had to.  We decided that it was better to walk on the cool side as we will warm up with walking.

Photos of the main street where there is a split in the Camino (left to Samos and right to Sarria) and the large pilgrim statue we took the left path and headed towards Samos walking past a large board where we noticed bears were a part of the local fauna and that started us wondering but as we continued to walk we thought how easily bears could live here as the forest was very thick and there was a plentiful supply of food as the river runs right through there and no fishing is allowed as it seems to be a breeding area – perfect for bears!

The river was an ever present source of noise and the character of the river changed from still but running water to areas of rapids.  There were very few towns along the way today, but we managed to find a little café/bar in Renche where we stopped for a little while.

The scenery had included a lot of fungi and different plants today, so we had a lot to keep us interested and there were lots of farm vehicles to watch along the way.  We stopped and watched a farmer using a great attachment to his tractor to push the cut grasses into a long “snake” where it will sit for a day or so before being collected up and stored as sillage in a waterproof cover.

Through a road tunnel and we came upon a very tall wall and, through the occasional break, we could now see the town of Samos to our right.  We wandered down the main street trying to find a café where we could have an ensalata mixta for lunch as I was getting sick of bocadillos but we couldn’t find any.  Eventually I said we should just get to our accommodation as it was supposed to have a few restaurants/cafes nearby.

Luckily it was the case – we headed towards the Monastery and found a great little café on the corner opposite the albergue associated with the Monastery and they had salad.  Two were very quickly ordered and they were great.  The placemat had a map of this part of Galicia across to Santiago de Compostela and that brought it home once again that we are not very far from our destination now.

We checked into our room (about 10m from the café) and headed for showers and a bit of down time before heading over to the Monastery for the guided tour at 1630H.  Unfortunately the tour was in Spanish but Google Translate conversation helped and we picked up about 70% of what the monk was saying.  Only 7 monks currently live in the Monastery and they must rattle around as it is huge!

I found this quotation and loved it –

So secluded, so narrow, so buried is that Monastery between four high mountains, which from all sides not only close it, but also oppress it, that it is only seen from the stars, when they are vertical...

The layout of the place portrays the religion of its inhabitants. It portrays it, and even influences it: because the Horizon is closed everywhere, there are no objects where the spirit can dissipate. Only towards Heaven does the sight have relief; and thus Heaven takes all the attention.

As a bit of background:

·      The monastery of Samos gives its name and history to this town and the municipality while the Sarria River runs alongside its walls.

·      The Monastery is built from slate masonry with the rusticity and simplicity of the exterior walls contrasting with the nobility and elegance of its granite stone cloisters.

·      The cloisters here are the largest in Spain and Samos is the oldest inhabited Monastery in Spain – dating from the 7th Century.

·      The monks of the monastery are Benedictines. We do not know when they accepted the Rule of Saint Benedict, possibly in the middle of the 10th century but from a tombstone, we know that in the middle of the 7th century the bishop of Lugo Ermefredo restored it.

·      It was originally called Sámanos Monastery and was known that way for centuries.  This name of Visigothic descent, with the passage of time, would be reduced to that of Samos.

·      In 1951 a huge fire destroyed the paintings on the walls of the upper cloister but from 1957 four painters came in and now the walls are a profusion of colour depicting the life of Saint Benedict.

We were both very happy we were able to take the tour as it was such an interesting place – apart from the fact that the temperature dropped about 10 degrees when we went inside.  Not really hard to imagine how cold it would get in the depths of winter as the snow markers on the road indicate that they get quite a lot of snow in the hills above Samos.

A wander around the outside of the Monastery was an interesting one as it is huge – we headed down the road in the same direction we will take tomorrow – to see if we could find a supermarket open to buy some tissues and some bananas and were lucky to find one open (Saturday afternoon).  By this stage we were ready to wind down for the rest of the day so we headed to a small bar close to our accommodation and had a glass of wine while listening to the river running close by at the end of the garden.  It was very relaxing but the showers moved in so we headed back under cover and then wandered over to our lunch place and had a menu de dia – and it was really lovely and well worth the 14 Euros each.

We sat at a table with Ron and Estelle.  Ron is someone we have been bumping into for weeks now and he worked out that we had first met him at Castrojeriz on the paella night.  Ron is from the Netherlands and we have had some great conversations with him over that time and he is always smiling.  He is getting excited as his wife is coming over to meet him on completing his Camino and then they will be going walking for 2 weeks.  Estelle is also originally from the Netherlands but is now living in California.

Ron asked where we are staying tomorrow night and we let him know we will be staying at Casa Barbadelo so he also booked a room for him and a room for Estelle so we will join up for breakfast and then have dinner with them tomorrow night.  After a few drinks it was back to our room and lights were out!