Camino del Norte – Day 10 – Boimorto – O Pino – 26,7 km
At this stage on the Camino del Norte one can choose what route to follow and there are basically 3 different options. The first one will bring you immediately to the Camino Frances, the second one will take a bit longer to connect with the Frances and the third one, you guessed it, will take the longest time before connecting to the Frances. The advantage of the third option is also that it is the shortest route to Santiago de Compostela.
Now, to make a choice you should know that the Frances is a very crowded route, compared to the Del Norte. Right now, on the Del Norte, I see hardly any other pilgrim on a day. On the Frances I would look around me and probably see ten’s of pilgrims. To give you a different perspective: in 2018 56,88% of all pilgrims arriving in Santiago de Compostela walked the Frances and only 5,62% followed the Del Norte.
Used to, and appreciating, the quietness of the Del Norte I wanted to stay away as long as possible from the Frances. Hence I chose the third option and that was an interesting road Today. A road that can be divided into three parts: the first 10 km was along a long and windy road with some great views and lots of asphalt. The second 8 km was along country roads with beautiful views and local encounters, like another herd of cows with the farmer directing the herd from his Lamborghini tractor, while his wife was walking with the cows. The last 8 km of Today were downright boring and sometimes even dangerous. This stretch was along the N634, a major road with lots of freight traffic. Walking this part I wondered why the Xunta designed the route like this. There are so many more beautiful roads in Galicia!
Had I known on forehand about the N634 stretch I would have chosen one of the other options and joined the Frances earlier. At hindsight the mid-section across the beautiful Galician landscape made the walk still worthwhile.
Today’s stretch showed once again the many aspects of the Eucalyptus forestry in Galicia. From full grown, large Eucalyptus trees to freshly cut large tree trunks and new planting.
