The last few days have been through the beautiful Galician countryside. The descent out of O Cebreiro was moderate, but long. It was a steady downhill over 20 kms. After that, it was a lot of smaller ups and downs. Many of these little towns are located on rivers, so the end of the day typically marks a descent into the river valley, and the beginning of the hike the next morning typically involves an ascent out of the valley.

I decided to take a rest day today in a little town called Portomarin. An interesting fact about this town is that in the 1960s the reservoir basin at the river was expanded, which meant that the entire town would’ve been underwater. So the decision was made to relocate some of the infrastructure and some of the historic buildings brick by brick, stone by stone. When the water level on the river and the basin is low, you can still see some vestiges of the town that was.