Lots of Climbs

 We walked from Vigo to Arcade today and we had several steep climbs at different points in the walk.  Vigo is on the Atlantic so we started at 20 feet above sea level.  We walked out of Vigo along the coast until we turned east to meet up with the original Portuguese Camino route.  This entailed climbing about 500 feet up in less than a mile - and some slopes were 30 percent or better.  Basically you are on your toes pushing hard on every step.  When we got to the right road we had a beautiful view of the countryside and the ocean below us.

We walked for about 6 miles at the higher altitude going out of Vigo and into the countryside.  The path was very nice with trees shading and views out to the city and water below.  

Near Redondela we headed downhill - all the way back to roses level and into that small town.  We took a break at a cafe as we got ready for the last 4 miles of hiking - up into the hills toward Arcade.  

Redondela had an old section which we thru but then headed out into the countryside again.  We knew we had to climb to 700 feet to reach our rural Casa hotel.  The climb was made in several pieces of about 200 feet each.  Wr took breaks at several points to eat some food and rest our legs.  The final section was a challenge but we pushed thru and up to the lovely hotel where we are staying tonight.

We met some fun people from Iowa and enjoyed exchanging stories of Spain and Portugal.  Several sent their kids to Iowa State which is where Jack went to school.  Wr all ate dinner together and the food was great.  We had a power outage so ate by iPhone and candle light.  The power finally came on for dessert and it was also good.  

We are getting ready for bed and looking forward to a shorter day of about 10 miles tomorrow.  We did 14.5 today and 16 yesterday.  


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