This was the second part of the link
between the Primitivo and the Norte,
and was probably our best day on the
whole Camino!
Sue strapped up her knee and took some Ibuprofen,
and we set off in the early light not knowing if
we would have to give up today.
Tha path led along a little river, past a modern
swimming pool complex and some sort of adventure
village still under construction and into the countryside.
We hadn't realised that Friol was such a modern place!
We started off on country paths and roads, passing an old mill.
There were few people, and we passed through villages deserted apart from dogs!
The green arrows were usually there, but sometimes hard to spot.
Then it got harder going, with churned up mud and even stepping stones across a river.
Then came an unusual encounter:
we were following a lady encouraging a herd of cows up the hill,
when she asked Sue if she was French. Sue said, no, Swiss, and
the lady's face lit up. She expained, in Bernese dialect,
that thirty years ago she (Ermita) had worked in Thun
hospital! ( Thun is the next big town to where we live).
She chatted for some time about how she had enjoyed life in Switzerland,
until our ways parted.
From there, we walked through eerily deserted forests,
discovering the bones of the hind leg of a deer on the way.
Angus joked that there must be bears in the woods.
Later that evening, another pilgrim regaled us with his story of meeting a wolf
in those same woods!
Eventually we joined the Camino Norte for a section of road with a well-made,
separate pilgrim path, and started to meet other pilgrims again-
We stopped for coffee and snack and chatted to a few of them over a snack.
From there it was past the lake full of frogs to the monastery.
There we had to queue to register with a receptionist who muttered
that this was a monastery and if people didn't like
the pace of life here, they should find a different hostel!
Then Brother Lawrence, a well-educated Englishman, with an unusual attitude to being a monk,
and who was enjoyable to chat to, showed us to our dormitory.
We had a look around, then ate at the long table in the kitchen with
a talkative Australian and two quiet Dutch.
We went to bed early, although Angus saw the cloisters by moonlight because he had to
go to the toilet in the middle of the night.