Tuesday 9 October 2012

Pinera to Tol

Navia to Tol about 26km?
Got off ok this morning and headed down the last couple of kilometres to the centre of Navia where we took the opportunity to get a coffee and a croissant. Another fishing town in a deep valley. The photo shows the view as we left the town. Heading towards a AdP in Tol today. Got a little rain on the way but not for too long. I keep assessing every piece of plastic on the way to see if it would serve as a temporary rain coat. Hopefully a shopping option will occur soon.  First section was simple, flat and good tracks. Then came a junction with some Camino info painted on a wall - see photo. We expected to go to Tol via Carida but the info offered an option to avoid Carida and potentially take a more direct route. After much discussion we chose the 'direct' way to Tol. Started off ok but with  no obvious Camino way markers but then we noticed a fleck of paint on a telegraph pole and this with the google info gave us some confidence in the route. To cut a long story short we got to Tol in the end. There were a few crosses on the way that gave some clues and the occasional local pointed us in the right direction. We the met up with a French lady that spoke good Spanish so she managed to get some more directions as well. However, without google maps we would all have struggled. Spoke to the French lady on the way and she was heading for Tol as well but she had booked into a hotel. She turned off a little before us and we headed on to the AdP which we found about half a kilometre down the road. Unfortunately, the door was closed and it appears you had to call the local police station for the key. More importantly there was nothing else in Tol so no food no drink. We therefore decided to find the hotel which we found further back in the village. Christine was still at the reception and it turned out that the only reason they were open was because she had booked the room a while ago. However, the kitchen and restaurant were closed!  Lucky for us she had booked a room otherwise we would have had another 5 plus km to walk today. Think we have overcome the food problem as the young Spanish man has agreed that they do have pasta and tomatoes at least so I think I may be cooking tonight. Before. I forget I must mention the Camino guide books that are currently available in English and there are few.  We are mostly using one given to us in the tourist info centre in Deba which has a book of the hiking stages and a book about accommodation through each stage. This appears to be published by the Spanish tourist board and is ok. Some info is limited and some, such as the expected heights to be climbed each day, is very optimistic. In fact a few days back after Soto de Luina it turns out that we climbed to nearly 800m!  However, I also bought the two guides from the Confraternity of St James, at £5 each, and they frankly are next to useless. Very few maps, very little AdP info and all written in detailed text turn by turn that would be next to impossible to follow unless you constantly looked at the book and then you would never see a thing on the way! Not sure where we will end up tomorrow as Ribadeo is only about 8km away and Lourenza is 36km away and we have no info about any AdP, hostel or hotel in between!  As for food tonight it would appear that my offer to cook prompted a change of heart and they produced a good tuna salad then a reasonable pasta with cheesecake and coffees to follow! The hotel was expensive compared to our norm as it was 60€ for the two of us but at least dinner was only 8€ each. Pity we were too late for the pool and the 9 hole golf course.  


1 comment:

  1. Hope you both have a good meal tonight. Have you run out of figs to eat? The forecast is for rain here tomorrow, so I hope it stays with us and you stay dry! Have you also lost your black bin bag mac!!! Christa

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