Kiwi Pilgrims: 10/09/23

9 October 2023

A Rua de Valdeorras to Soldón - 18 kms

We got off to an early start today in an attempt to be finished walking before the heat of the afternoon, also after walking through sprawling urban areas yesterday, we wanted to get out of A Rua de Valdeorras as quickly as we could.

Just as we did after leaving Borrenes, we diverged from the camino route in order to see the Túnel de Montefurado, a tunnel the Romans made to divert the Rio Sil from its natural course in oder to enable quick and easy mining of gold from the exposed riverbed.

The information board stated that the work was most probably started during the reign of emperor Titan (98 - 177 AD). It was considered to be one of the most spectacular civil engineering works carried out by the Romans in what was then the province of Hispania.

The Rio Sil still flows through the tunnel, it never reverted to its original course.

We then found our way back to the camino, joining it in the semi abandoned village of Montefurado which sits above the ancient Roman tunnel.

The rest of our walk was a mix of roadside and tracks and we had great shade at times. The route took us through only two villages, Montefurado and Bendilló, neither had any services - nor does Soldón where we're staying in a tiny apartment tonight.

Soldón is a small village which once would have been quiet by now, unfortunately, it has a motorway flyover. The good thing is that it's not very noisy where the apartment is - the nearby geese and roosters are quite noisy though.

Knowing there were no services in Solden and not wanting to carry more food then we had to, I messaged the apartment owner and, using Google Translate, I asked him if he could buy a few groceries for us. Not only did he buy the groceries he has supplied salt, vinegar and two types of olive oil. He explained that the vinegar and one olive oil was for our salad and we were to use the other when cooking.

We arrived in Soldón before the real afternoon heat and, for the first time since we were in Lestelle-Betharram, we were able to hang our washing out on a line in the sun.

Our host at A Rua de Valdeorras was worried about us getting lost when we set off before light this morning, as we were quite a way off the camino route, so he walked us to the first marker.

Having seen us safely to the marker he set off home again.

Out in the countryside again.

Jeff making his way down to the Rio Sil to look for the Túnel de Montefurado.

This is the best shot I could get of the Roman Túnel de Montefurado.

Looking back along the Rio Sil.

On our way to rejoin the Camino path at Montefurado.

Coming into Montefurado. It was built on and around ruina montium - ruined mountain - after the Romans had extracted gold from the hills just as they did in Las Médulas. These pillars and the cliff the house in the background are some of the remains of the ruined mountain.

There were plenty of other ruins in Montefurado.

One of the occupied houses in Montefurado matched the yellow arrow of bench seat. We've already seen a few of these bench seats so far.

Still in Montefurado

...and on our way again.

We walked through another wee settlement, or the ruins of one, a short distance from Montefurado.

A view out from the path

We really appreciated the shade on the wooded paths we had today.

A tiny unnamed church.

Next door to the church was a small, locked, building which a sign said was a Olive Oil Museum. The Romans first bought olive trees to Spain.These are pressing stones.