Day 6: Oia to Nigrán

October 12, 2023. National Day of Spain.

What a beautiful little hostel we spent the night in, started by and run by a pilgrim who had walked the caminos herself, and now dedicates this hostel to what pilgrims need. It was quiet, comfortable and situated in a lovely little historic town on the coast. Alice, however was bitten in many places by bedbugs and I slept poorly due to two cans of green tea in the afternoon. We awoke early and decided to get going. Fotunately we found bagels, yoghurt and coffee in the common goods and were able to get a decent breakfast to start the day. There would be nothing else in the first 10 km.

It was dark and cloudy as we emerged from the hostel with our headlamps showing the path. We almost never start walking in the dark, but were grateful for strong headlamps to show the way. The path led us past a large historic church and then on a path along the sea. Eventually the path rose to follow the main highway, along what we call the yellow brick road, because it’s painted gold. There were numerous cyclists coming in the opposite direction, perhaps because of the national holiday.

We ran into several pilgrim friends along the way— Andrea the Barcelona nurse, a French man from Lyon, and Colin from Oregon.

At 10 km we came up on the large historic windmill that marked the location of Camping Mougás and a large cafe.

The fresh croissants made into sandiches of ham and cheese, the coffee and the orange juice from Valencia oranges hit the spot. Now we were ready to take on the day and the anticipated hills.

We continued northward, aware of the mountain rising in front of us.

Soon the path crossed the road and headed into the hill so that we could cross a pass between the small mountain and the rest of the mainland. The path meandered up and down, and after an hour started to let us down into sizeable towns including A Anunciada where there was a celebration going on of the National Holiday

We coontinued to meander around small towns on old paths

We came to a busy little town with many restaurants open and stopped for a wonderful lunch of seafood, salad and sangria.

We continued on, following a meandering route as we began to approach the sprawling suburbs of Vigo. We arrived at the River Miñor where we crossed on a stone bridge first built in the 800s.

I had a little trouble navigating to our posada, but we eventually overcame my doubts and arrived at El Retiro, a humble but adequate hotel. Our total was again 30 km, more than promised. We will anticipate a rain day tomorrow and take a shorter day into the large city of Vigo.