2Sassytravelers
Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
Day 1
6-7 May 2015
For our first night in Spain we booked the Hostel (Hotel) El Cruce
because of its proximity to the airport and it offered a free shuttle service
to and from the airport. Our
flight got us into Madrid about midnight and we needed to be back at the
airport at 0900 the next day.
Although our lodging is called Hostel El Cruce, it is really a
hotel. In Spain smaller hotels are
called Hostels. Hostels as we know
them are called “Youth Hostels”.
We used this duffel bag to fly
over items we could not carry on the plane like Sally’s hiking poles and the
Swiss Army knife. We also used it
to pack the extra clothes we would be using on our travels through Spain and
Portugal after we finish our pilgrimage.
It will also be used to carry home the souvenirs we pick up along the
way.
You may want to bring along
your own snacks and drinks on the train as just one can of Fanta Orange Soda
cost us 2.50€ (Ouch).
On our train ride to Sarria we watched the terrain change
Our online research told us
that there were post offices in terminals 4 and 1 at Madrid’s Barajas
Airport. As we needed to catch the
train from terminal 4 to Madrid’s Chamartin train station, mailing this package
and getting off to the train station would work out great. The hotel shuttle got us to terminal 4
just before 0900 and we quickly learned that the ONLY post office in Barajas airport
was located in terminal 1. Luckily
for us there is a free airport shuttle that will ferry you to and from all the
terminals. We made it to the post
office in terminal 1 about 0915, where we met a woman from Mexico, who helped
us translate that we needed to mail our duffel bag to Santiago. The bag weighed about 10.3 kilos and
cost us 21.90€ to mail to Santiago.
It would arrive in four days.
It turns out that this woman will be starting her Camino in about three
days with her husband. We thanked
her and wished her “Buen Camino”.
We caught the shuttle back to terminal 4 to catch the train to Chamartin
station.
Now, I had read some place online
that if you present your RENFE train tickets to the RENFE ticket office in the
airport they will issue you a free pass to take the train to Chamartin
station. We did this and were
issued our free tickets.
At Chamartin station I did
notice another post office. I didn’t
know if you could mail packages from this post office or not, but I don’t see
why you couldn’t. Looking for our
train to Sarria we learned that they don’t post the platform the trains are
leaving from until 20 minutes before their departure.
On our train ride to Sarria we watched the terrain change
from flat,
To hilly,
And then to mountainous.
We arrived in Sarria on time, about 1900 (7:00p). We walked up the hill
to our albergue, the Mosteiro da Madalena, which is an old monastery. On our way up to the albergue we passed
the Camino distance marker 111.
The front desk at the albergue was staffed by a volunteer who gave us a quick tour of the facilities and explained the house rules, such as "Lights out at 10:00 pm".
Facilities at the albergue included a kitchen with pots/pans and utensils, vending machines that sold food items like drinks and hot coffee, and canned food items mac & cheese. There were 3 computer stations that cost 1€ per 1/2 hour. They also provided paper mattress covers, pillow covers and blankets if you wanted them. They had a locker system where you inserted a Euro and locked your things up and when you returned the key to the locker to retrieved your stuff you got your Euro Back.
To hilly,
And then to mountainous.
We arrived in Sarria on time, about 1900 (7:00p). We walked up the hill
to our albergue, the Mosteiro da Madalena, which is an old monastery. On our way up to the albergue we passed
the Camino distance marker 111.
The front desk at the albergue was staffed by a volunteer who gave us a quick tour of the facilities and explained the house rules, such as "Lights out at 10:00 pm".
Facilities at the albergue included a kitchen with pots/pans and utensils, vending machines that sold food items like drinks and hot coffee, and canned food items mac & cheese. There were 3 computer stations that cost 1€ per 1/2 hour. They also provided paper mattress covers, pillow covers and blankets if you wanted them. They had a locker system where you inserted a Euro and locked your things up and when you returned the key to the locker to retrieved your stuff you got your Euro Back.
We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant close by where we joined 2 other pilgrims, Mary from England and Jaimie from Italy. We ordered the “Meal of the day” where we selected a mixed salad plate (lettuce, pickled eggplant, tomatoes and carrots),pasta with tomato and meat sauce, pannacotta for desert and 2 glasses of sangria (14€).
Back at the albergue we
showered and hand washed our laundry and laid it out to dry. Sally was in the shower when the
lights went out at 10:00.
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