May 9th - Barreiros to Mondoñedo

When we set off our host advised us to continue along the road through San Cosmé rather than retracing our steps to the FEVE bridge. He said that the route came up to the road about 1km from the Moderno so we took his advice.

The signing was good until after Vilaronte. We stopped in the cafe-bar in Vigo (Vilaronte) and bought some bread as well as our drinks, then walked up the hill to the marked left turn. The next turn should have been signed right, but it had gone so we walked about 2kms out of our way before we could see from our map that we had strayed. It did mean that we saw a curious statue (like an Easter Island type head) outside one house. Retracing our steps we passed both the sign for A Rúa and the carpentaria again before finding our turning, helped by a local. On our way down there was a 'double' right turn and we should have taken the second - a road straight uphill, without going past the carpentaria at all.

This was a longish steep section coming out at a cruceiro. The very helpful lady at the house pointed on down the road (again marked) and chattered on in a mix of Castillano and Gallego - very happy to see 2 pilgrims going to Mondoñedo and San Andrés. The latter was a great talking point on many occasions, most folk don't walk there but have transport. Finally arriving in Mondoñedo we followed the sign round to the back of the cathedral to the information office for the key.

This was a good walk although on the road for some distance and hopefully when the new gateway at the road junction is completed the sign might be restored. The detour made us decide to take a taxi from Mondoñedo to our accomodation because of the time and concern over the signs being missing again.