Day 2 - Sarria to Portomarin

Itinerary

Walk to Portomarin – 22.5 km [14 Miles]

Bring your bags to Hotel Lobby and Breakfast at the hotel. Expect a calm walk through pretty villages and peaceful hamlets under the shade of oak trees and along quiet country roads. Along the way, you will spot many Galician traditional ‘hórreos’ (granaries). Local Dinner in Town!

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Journal Entry ~ Josh Adkins

Today at 730am in Sarria, Spain, after years of anticipation and months of preparation, we pilgrims took our first steps on the Camino.

Our group consists of Hap and Kathy, who celebrated their anniversary today, Josh and Mandy (celebrating 20 years of marriage in April), our host Steve and our local guide Javier, who lives in Vigo, Spain.

Before we left Sarria, Steve shared a brief devotional, encouraging us to embrace the role of pilgrim and ask ourselves the purpose of our trip. Sarria (where we spent the night) is a beautiful city and we got to walk past its cafes, shops and even a school on our way out of town. 

The walking terrain over the course of our day is very diverse. It includes city streets and sidewalks, rocky paths and country roads. We stayed fairly flat today, but there were definitely some steep uphill and downhill sections. The trails were crowded in places and empty in others. We started to recognize familiar faces of other pilgrims that we would bump into at our various stops.

In all, we covered 14 miles and arrived at our hotel in Portomarin around 3:30! We stopped a few times for refreshments and lunch. Having Javier with our group is very valuable, in particular today as he took us to some amazing spots for lunch and the afternoon snack.

The group felt a huge sense of accomplishment today after making it thru Day 1. We enjoyed conversations with one another as we walked. Tomorrow we have another big day (16 miles!) but we will get a good dinner and hopefully some good rest tonight before we head out tomorrow at 7 am

-Josh Adkins