It only took one taste of the Camino to get hooked. Shortly after returning from the Camino Portuguese in May we had already started planning our next one for the following Autumn. It didn't take a lot of deliberation to work out what would come next. My work schedule would only allow us another 2 week trip. We also had a strong desire to see Finisterre, the end of the world. The combination of the Camino Inglés and the Camino Finisterre would fulfil both criteria.
With the Inglés at 110 km and the Finisterre via Muxia at 122 km, they are easily achieved within 2 weeks. You can do either in less than a week each but we were in no rush. We had learnt on the Portuguese that 15 to 18 km per day was the right place for us.
The Inglés is the shortest of the main Camino routes into Santiago de Compostela. Its name comes from the pilgrims who would start their journey in England, take a boat to the northern Galician coast and continue from there. Nowadays there's two options for starting the Inglés, A Coruña and Ferrol, both connecting at Hospital de Bruma. It's more likely that olden-days pilgrims would have arrived in A Coruña as there would have been very few options to arrive by boat from England to Ferrol. Despite the authenticity, the route from A Coruña is shorter than the 100km needed to get the Compostela certificate. At 110km, Ferrol is the more popular route, especially for pilgrims like me who need the certificate.
As the date for our trip approached I was in desperate need of a break. Work had been intense, and getting stuck in Newark Airport on a 27 hour delay didn't help. I'd wished to not travel again for work any time soon. As it turned out that wish came true as Covid scuppered all work travel for the following 2 years.
My wish for uneventful air travel didn't come through though. Our plan was to fly from Heathrow to A Coruña then take a taxi to Ferrol. A broken piece of engine kept us at Heathrow for four hours before our flight was cancelled and we had to return home. The expensive, albeit insurance-covered, Plan B was to take a taxi to Gatwick the next morning into then an early flight to Santigo via Barcelona and a taxi to Ferrol. We arrived at the harbour in time for our scheduled start time for the walk.
With the stress of the travel and a very hot day, the first leg to Neda was hard going. I still had a lot of work thoughts running around in my head. This didn't feel like the mindful Camino experience that we remembered from a few months before.
This trip was also different in that we were a group of three rather than two. Adina, a good friend of ours whose previous Caminos had inspired our Portuguese trip, joined us for what would be her third Camino.
As we arrived in Neda for the first night we checked into our different accommodations. Adina preferred to stay in the communal Albergues. One sleepless Albergue experience on the Portuguese was enough for us and we opted for comfortable B&Bs and small hotels instead. We soon got over any anxiety about doing an "authentic" Camino. We saw a lot of snobbery around what constitutes a genuine Camino experience. There's always someone doing it with more hardship than you. For us, that wasn't what the experience was about. Everyone has their own Camino experience however they do it. We found our way of doing it and it worked well for us.
As it turned out Adina had a great first night's sleep in her newly built Albergue. Our hotel experience wasn't so great due to the combination of thin walls and partying neighbours. The rest of the trip's accommodations, with one exception, were much better and more like what we were used to on the Portuguese.
The one exception to the good night's sleep was in Presedo. This was on a longer stretch of the route with few accommodation choices. Our only option was the Albergue. It was .....fine .... as Albergues go, but we'd got used to having our own rooms and this was a bit of a shock to the system. Food choices were limited too with the only restaurant 20 minutes walk away. The reviews for the restaurant were good but we must have been there when the staff were having an off night. We got through the snoring, the humid room and the bed bugs and set off early the next day. The reward was a great hotel (for us) and another new Albergue (for Adina) on the next night.
The route in general was interesting and enjoyable. It didn't have the "wow factor" of the Portuguese so we were glad to have done that one as our first Camino experience. Instead this was a satisfying continuation of our Camino story, a middle chapter of a longer book that we're still writing. Having a friend join us also gave us a different perspective on the trip.
Entering Santago de Compostela at the end of the Portuguese was a magical and emotional experience. This was different. It didn't give us the big sense of achievement or the thrill of the new. Instead, it felt like coming home. Although this was only our second visit, we were already in love with the place and it was starting to feel like a place we would return to often.
The other big difference to our first Camino was that Santiago was a stop on the way, not the final destination. The next day we would wake up, have breakfast and start walking again. We would continue towards the West in search of the end of the world: Finisterre.
