Pilgrim's Road

the Camino goes through the narrow cleft of the beautiful Valcarce where, for the first ten miles or so, there is little opportunity of avoiding the N VI. Only a few short detours offer all too brief respites from this murderously fast road. But what respites! The moment I left the bare hot strip of tarmac I would be plunged into lanes darkly shadowed by trees, where picturesque old villages gave way to hedgerows thick with broom, primroses, wild hellebore, speedwell, campion, hawthorn, grass of parnassus, iris, dog violets, apple blossom and scores of other growing things I failed to record. None of these escape routes lasted long, they simply served to remind me constantly of how lovely life could be without the addition of trunk roads.
    Not until Ambasmestas where the new N VI takes off on the first of a series of spectacular giant viaducts can the cyclist finally escape. The old N VI follows a less spectacular course, though infinitely more beautiful, climbing, plunging and twisting through the gorges of the Cordillera Cantábrica. Several times the new road crosses the old one, sailing above it at what seemed like an impossible height. But stiff climbing though it was on my road at times, not for a moment did I envy the rushing vehicles their high wire of a road: from where I was it looked terrifying. Very little traffic passed me on my way, and I was able to enjoy my ride in peace and tranquillity (just as the ‘Pilgrim’s Itinerarium’ hoped I would). In a surprisingly short time, so fit was I by now, I had crossed into Galicia on the last stages of my journey. Pointing Roberts even more steeply upwards I began the climb to the ancient sanctuary of O Cebreiro, the legendary resting place of the Holy Grail.
     

13
     
    Regions of Mist and Legend
     
    A S I toiled up the steep winding road out of the chestnut woods, a valley opened up far below me to the right, a patchwork of small fields, all neatly divided by grey granite walls, its vibrant and infinite variety of green was astonishing. Under the blue, rain-washed sky with its dusting of white cloud, the Galician landscape had a freshness about it that put energy into my tired muscles, and made me think that the best of the journey had been kept for the final stages. Nor was I alone in this thought; Aimery Picaud’s guide also waxes lyrical over Galicia.
     
‘...a well watered region with rivers and meadows and fine orchards, excellent fruit and clear springs... ’
     
    And with his customary strong xenophobic bias, he bestows on the people of the region the ultimate accolade:
     
‘The Galicians are more like our French people in their customs than any other of the uncultivated races of Spain.’
     
    The journey had presented such a wealth of variety that I would have expected it to have exhausted its repertoire by now. Yet here I was, almost at the end of the eleventh of Aimery Picaud’s thirteen stages, with less than a hundred miles to go to Santiago, and once again I was in a region that both looked and felt delightfully different. This difference was expressed in every line, shade and aspect of the countryside, but as I came over the brow of the hill I saw that the works of man were even more novel.
    Perched on its small plateau among a panorama of hills was the little hamlet of O Cebreiro, with its strange stone-age pallozas , surely the most extraordinary dwellings to have survived into the twentieth century. Round, or rather oval in shape, they have low thick walls and a curious thatched roof that rises to a single point, though never quite over the precise centre of the building. The traditional houses of Galicia — and no two are ever quite alike — vary to suit the pitch and lay of the ground they are built upon. Sometimes they are tucked into the side of a hill so that one flank of the building is below ground. Traditionally they were shared by the cows and other livestock, and were built with a decided slope towards the animals’ half so that drainage should be in their direction. Inside, a simple half wall divided the two apartments, leaving the greater share for the humans. An open hearth with no chimney, one or two very small windows and an enormous central kingpost to support the roof, and you had a home that could defy the worst that wind and weather could hurl at it. That it would also be smoky and certainly dark were small considerations to a hardy outdoor people. With regional variations, such habitations once existed all