Day 25 - 23.6km Alto de Poio to Samos

Some places on the Camino have so much potential. Alto de Poio where we stayed last night is one of those places. Right at the top of the hill with a beautiful vista, there is a run down albergue and a run down hotel, neither of which serves decent food (though they do serve wine at 3euro a bottle!). With a little investment this could be one of the best places to stop on the whole Camino! Can't knock the guy for trying though, he was up before 6am letting people out, and he was there working til gone 10pm!

We set off at our usual sort of time before 7.30 braced for a long and steep decent. What goes up must go down right!

We followed the ridge along from alto de poio and through the small town of Fonfria. Which had some great looking accomodation and places to eat, a much better alternative to where we stayed!!! Lessons learned log updated...

Then began the downhill.... And it was long, and steady! We moved along at a good speed making our way down into the clouds and to the town of triacastella. Supermarket trip done and ingredients fortuna sandwichs and a big bottle of orange juice in the pack and of we went again.

The road splits here and we take the 6km longer path to go via Samos. Others will go right, it's a shorter route but a 30km day to Sarria for those on that route.

We followed along the road winding along the valley, the river 50 metres or so down to our left. It was quiet with few pilgrims around as we marched forward, walking poles clacking against long wooden bridges alongside the road.

Eventually we moved away from the road and sat by the river for some orange juice and a relax, then again a mile or so later for our tuna sandwichs, where we were joined by Josie an Australian lady we have bumped into over the last week. It was a nice lunch in the sun.

We continued on now moving into a tree lined track with a long uphill before rounding the corner to be blessed with the stunning view of Samos monostary, the oldest of its kind in Spain. We continued down into Samos and passed a big field with a few scattered sunbathers, running along the rivers edge.

Check in completed we returned, six pack of supermarket beers in hand to sit with our feet in the river.

We were joined by Gustaf from Denmark. He was a master's in philosophy but is changing to software engineering, but he had written to the monostary here in Samos asking to join them for a period. A very interesting chat and complex guy!

It was a magnificent afternoon sat in the sun with cold beers and trout jumping for flies in front of us.

To round the evening off we went for dinner and I had a small steak.

Life is good on the Camino!