Wednesday, September 17, 2014

A First Look at Galicia

Took the train this morning from Santiago de Compostela this morning to Ourense, ie, from where we will end our walk, to where we start. A 45 minute ride. The train ride was, roughly, along the route we'll be walking for the next several days.

The part of Spain we're in, Galicia, is beautiful. Rolling, wooded land with farms and small villages, and green as the dominant color in the countryside.. This is very different from what we saw around Madrid, where the browns that you might associate with the central and southern parts of the country.

Taking pictures through the window of a moving train doesn't necessarily give you the b
est shots, but there are two things in this photo that are important.

First, the rainbow. Beautiful, and welcoming us to our walk. But the problem with a rainbow is that, yes, it's raining ahead. The last couple of days have had showers early and late in the evening, with scattered clouds and sun for the afternoon. Temperatures have been on the cool side. The forecast is for pretty much the same the rest of the week. What that means for us pilgrims, is that the temperatures will be great, but we're going to have to deal with some rain. It's not like we haven't been through that in Ireland.

The other thing you can see in the picture is the green, rolling countryside. Green is good, and rolling is scenic. But rolling means up and down, and that's important to simple pilgrims like us, who have to walk the ups and downs.

We'll start tomorrow out of Ourense, which is in a valley surrounded by these green hills. The elevation profile of tomorrow's walk starts off flat, then after a couple of miles takes a sharp spike up. It looks like around 1500 feet of elevation gain over a pretty short distance. One guide book says the grade reaches 19 percent for a ways. A 19 percent grade is work. Marty and I are already calling it Gammy Hill, after an earlier adventurer.


But the better news is that after getting to the top of the grade, it's pretty level for the rest of tomorrow's walk. Supposedly.      

4 comments:

  1. Gammy hill..I like it.. good luck and what are your trail names. How many miles tomorrow?

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  2. Just remember to drink a lot. Have fun on the hills.

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