• Thursday 9th October, 2014

• Lugo: Hotel Espana, €25 for a single room with private bathroom

Today I played touragrina, rather than peregrina (pilgrim).

My first stop was the Cathedral. Construction began in 1129 in the Romanesque style and was continually expanded until the 19th century. I looked around and looked for somewhere to get a pilgrim passport stamp but I couldn’t find any office as such and just as I was leaving, a lady came out of a discreet door in front of me and said she could give me a stamp.

My next stop was the Roman wall. I walked around the old city on top of the Roman wall and it took 25 minutes to do a complete circuit. The wall was built between 256 and 310AD, is 2,157m long, between 8-12m wide on top and is a Unesco World Heritage site.

Then the Centre of Interpretation of the Way of St James, a museum of Lugo through the centuries and the history of the Camino primitivo, set in a restored 15th century townhouse. I watched a lovely video here depicting an early pilgrim walking the way and sleeping along the path or on straw in people’s homes… Carrying only a shoulder bag and a walking stick with a gourd full of water… Oh how times have changed! I was thinking to myself whether I could walk so simply but the honest truth is that I like taking photos and sharing them, and I take them on my phone as well as a camera, which both require chargers!

I stumbled across a museum about the Roman wall, but the information was all in Spanish so it was lost on me. It did have touchscreen computers however with an English option and this explained the people and places of importance around Lugo since Roman times.

I made my way outside the city walls, through the park and past the pulpo restaurants and down towards the Roman bridge. It started raining quite hard so I didn’t make it all the way down but I’ll see it again when I leave Lugo as the camino crosses this ancient bridge.

I wasn’t feeling so well and hadn’t eaten much during the day so I headed over to a restaurant recommended by the CSJ guide called Meson Manger just outside the Roman walls. It was €8 for the menu del dia and I had the caldo soup for starter, beef stew for main and flan for dessert. It was way too much but it felt like the hearty, nutritious type of food I needed.

Meson Manger, Lugo

Soup at Meson Manger, Lugo

Beef stew, Meson Manger, Lugo

Flan at Meson Manger, Lugo

Lugo

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