Triacastela to Sarria

(By bus)

My accommodation last night in Triacastela, Meson Vilasante, had one serious drawback. It was across the road from a construction site. All afternoon there was noise from machinery; a siesta was out of the question. Two different gangs were at work; one renovating the interior of a house, the other laying new tiles on the pavement. Suddenly everything came to a halt. One of them had apparently overloaded the electrical supply and there was a good deal of shouting as each side blamed the other. On the one side was a concrete mixer, on the other a grinding machine for cutting pavers to shape. They tried and tried to get things going, without success. Eventually they closed down the site, jumped in their respective vans and went home.

Triacastela means “three castles” none of which have survived. The ruins at the top of the hill might possibly be one of them:

The bell tower of the oldest church, but not dating back to 1220 when Alfonso IX founded the town.

At the end of town, pilgrims have a choice: turn left for the Monastery of Samos or turn right to go directly to Sarria. I have walked both ways in the past, so this year I took the bus., leaving at 10.30 am. I didn’t know which route the bus would take, so I was happy when it turned left for a scenic drive.

Sarria was quite busy and I had to use the app on my phone to direct me to Hotel Alfonso IX. This is very nice accommodation, I must say:

I went for a walk in the late afternoon and discovered that the Camino going out of town meant negotiating a huge long flight of steps:

Returning to the hotel by a footbridge over the river, I saw two girls soaking themselves in the water. It was a very hot afternoon (maybe 29 degrees, which is most unusual for Galicia):

I would like to have cooled off myself! The hotel supposedly has a pool but they don’t open it so early in the year, they say.