Alas….our last cycling day on this segment of the trip!
A short hop to Santiago and the end of our wee camino together!
It is still cold! But it was a nice ride to finish with.
We ran alongside this river for a while…
……before joining the Camino trail itself for 10kms or so.
Then onto some lovely wooded trails….
…..before taking the road into the city itself!
We stopped at the side entrance to the cathedral…
….before dropping our bikes in the middle of the famed square which welcomes thousands of so-called “pilgrims” every day.
We felt a bit of a fraud really….for Santiago was simply a convenient break point in the journey…rather than that mythical pilgrimage destination! It was cold…and mizzling!
(…to be fair though…I doubt many folk have ridden over 4,600kms to get here!!).
But it was good to get here…with bikes and bodies all in one piece!!
And from there…straight to the bike shop…
….to put the bikes to bed!! (I am now off to Greece and back to France….for two months….before returning with Shennae in late August for the last stage of the ride, across the North of Spain, through the Pyrenees, Andorra and back to Collioure!! Lots of climbing for Nae to look forward to!!!)
A bit sad to leave the bikes really…such constant companions for the last 9 weeks!
We then had to walk – what a novelty! – to find our accommodation.
Avid blog readers might remember the time when Corey threw a tube of ‘toothpaste’ to Iain…who then discovered it was Soov, our wonderful after-ride bottom cream! (only after he had started brushing his teeth!). Well..today – of all days – I did the opposite, smearing toothpaste all over my bottom! Hahaha!
Celebratory beers followed…of course. And plenty of soccer to watch! (England were miserable! Spain looking good!)
And Euchre of course! A tense game….for John needed only one more win to take the honours for the trip! He took the first 11-point game! I took the second! And then….alas…John took it away! So 7-5 overall!! Probably fair enough given I had never played it before this trip!
It has been a great three weeks! John was worried he might not be able to cope…but that very first beach-ride day…was without a doubt the hardest day’s cycling ever!! And we both coped…just! Everything since was relatively easy! John prepared a route map of our ride…with climbing shown too: our mountain crossing sticks out a bit…!
All in all we have had a blast!! And John has been the best of riding companions! Cheers John, and thank you!
The blog will be back up and running from 21 August!!
