August 22, 2023 – Jimandi

Walked today: 8.2 mi. Camino2023: 260 mi

more pilgrims concentrated in one area than we have ever seen this far from Santiago

We walked by our favorite place to stay on the Camino. We found Casa Nova de Rente by accident in 2015 and stayed here every Camino thru 2019, when we stayed 3 consecutive days, using it as a base when rooms were scarce in this area. The 400 year old family home is a classic Galícian farmhouse. The family treated us like family, including inviting us to eat dinner with them in their spacious kitchen.

Casa Nova de Rente, no longer open as a award winning Casa Rural (B&B) property… reverted back to a family home during and since the pandemic.

Typical path this morning, low 60’s, foggy, overcast… high in 90F’s forecasted.

still lots of fog but a stone “causeway” to add variety

old, deformed, sometimes spooky trees add to the scenery

hard to avoid photos of other pilgrims today… mostly starting from Sarria

We stopped at this bar for breakfast, having skipped one two miles earlier because it was overcrowded including no available seats, long lines to order snd longer lines for restrooms. This one was not much better.

heavy flow of pilgrims as we got to Casa Morgade, our home until tomorrow morning.

long line for ladies restroom when we arrived at Casa Morgade.

This is a time-lapse photo covering a 30 second period of pilgrims walking past Casa Morgade while Jim waited to check-in. This typical flow rate of pilgrims lasted from 10:45 – 1:30 pm.

Our room and auxiliary areas is one of the best we have seen anywhere. It’s well thought out and effectively addresses all the needs of domestic and international pilgrims.

common area for 6-8 double w/bath rooms, open, airy, plenty of good, comfortable seating.

spacious room with shelves, window ledge to dry socks, rod with hangers. plenty of good lighting.

Any well-designed room should have a separate unit beside each single bed or side of a king/double bed… electric outlet, table/shelf for your stuff, light switch. That seemed to be the standard for rooms like ours.

All crumbled from Jim’s pocket, this information sheet is genius. It was given to us at check-in and has a treasure trove of answers to the key questions that any guest needs, and it’s in the guest’s native language.

A nice outdoor area (private) provided for the 8 double room with bath rooms in our building.

After being into our room nearly 2 hours prior to official checkin time, we got showers and did some hand washing of clothes and hung them out to dry just outside our door on provided drying racks.

We made good use of the early checkin but were also waiting for the crowds to dissipate, we hoped, before attempting to get lunch, etc.

When we had lunch at 2:45 in the albergue dining room, the pilgrim traffic was almost nil.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to resting, napping and blogging.

At 7:00 p.m. we were not hungry, but were a bit antsy, so we walked another 1.5 miles to the 100km marker, took some photos to avoid the crowds tomorrow…