The distance via Camino between Borrenes and O Barco de Valdeorras according to my route is 36km so a pretty lengthy one!
Fortunately our host, Saturno, offered to drive us all in his 4WD to the Mirador de Orellan and then drop us of in the car park outside Las Medulas thus saving 7km walking on the Camino plus giving us a private viewing of the spectacular ruins of a mountain demolished by Roman slaves in the pursuit of gold for their masters. This ably demonstrating the advantages of having a fluent Spanish speaker in our trio thanks, Colin!
We turned off the Camino to do the short walk to the Mirador de Pedrices to admire the ingenuity of the Roman engineers in using water as a blasting medium to break up the mountain. Whilst thinking why hasn’t anyone finished the job off with dynamite!
We then started the long descent into Puente de Domingo Florez to find a very welcome bar for a drink and some tapas the route then went up a hill and past an intriguing hydroelectric scheme, apparently built by the Germans to aid their extraction of Wolfram (Tungsten Ore) in the forties. The track is very undulating down the valley with great views of the surrounding countryside and the slate works alongside the main road below. We decided to end the days walking in the lovely town of Sobradelo having a great late lunch in the busy Meson Museo restaurant. Fortunately, Geoff joined us with Colin’s car so we could skip the final 9km to O Barco.
The Hotel O Camino had a very challenging electronic kiosk to obtain the entry key which took at least 20 minutes to issue the keys for the three of us.
The day itself was cool and overcast with periodic rain showers
So Strava says we walked the 23 km (The watch missed around 1km) in under 5 hours of walking so 4.6km/hour
Here are the pics of the day:
