B and K along The Way: Sarria to Portomarin

Well, indeed, the path did get a bit more crowded today with people in fresh clothing, brand new packs of both mochilla and day pack size, and, in particular, brand new shoes!! Lots of people, varying ages, lots of cameras.

We had a superb first two hours or so walking with a couple in their seventies from New Zealand. They are on a four month long combination of trips and visiting friends and family around the globe, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They are today's biggest inspiration! We started out going right through Sarria, which we had done for dinner last night. Apparently, there used to be a Roman or romanesque bridge just as you come into Sarria - we don't read enough Spanish to know what it says about rebuilding :-(

Then there are the steps, familiar from the documentary "Six Ways to Santiago".

We were very curious what this little building was - some sort of a bird house? Every little farmstead suddenly had one of these.

Finally, we encountered a gentleman taking photos of one and we asked if he knew what it was. Turned out he spoke about as much Spanish as we did, but between his French and our combined English, French and Spanish we found it is a corncrib, it dries corn for animal feed.
We are definitely in a different farming area now that we're in Galicia, many dairy cows, cheese production, sheep, we even saw an ostrich in an enclosure today! Still the occasional vineyard, but seems to be more for love than money.

One item on the menu everywhere since we got to Galicia is Galician Soup, which is a broth with greens, white beans, flat green beans, and bits of potato. We have seen a remarkable number of plants that we suspect are Brussels sprouts, and wonder if the tops of these plants might be in the Galician soup.

We'll have to investigate more when we have more internet.

Today's midday stop was for bocadillos, or sandwiches. Cheese and jamon for B, cheese and tomato for me. Cheese here is mild and white, like Monterey Jack or Muenster.

Adjacent to our lunch spot was THE 100km marker! Expand the picture to see that it reads 100,746KM or about 62,000 miles😝 to go.

A tiny church with an ancient baptismal font, nearly hidden by the surrounding family crypts-

Our goal for the day, Portomarin, seen in the distance at about 12:20.

Had to walk down a STEEP, slippery, stone crevasse down to the river before Portomarin.

This town was two small towns years ago, and the one nearer the water was flooded and lost when the river was dammed in the early 60's. This entire church was moved up from the lower village and reassembled, block by block.