[Gocamino] Vilar de Donas

[Mr Charles Rush]

At Portos, where one turns to take the road to Vilar de Donas, there is a bar.  Behind it the owners have built a very clean and very new private refugio, 8 bunk beds, with a modern bath and shower.  It's set in a garden.  The bar serves meals upstairs in a very pleasant dining room.  I stayed there last September, and spent most of the afternoon exploring Vilar de Donas and the church of El Salvador.  The 14th century wall paintings seem to be fading; I wonder if steps are being taken to preserve them.  The typanum is well preserved, of course, with a porch roof over it.  The place is fascinating, especially the effigies of the Knights of Santiago which line the church's walls, and the fact that this 12th century church is still in use.  This is a stop off the Camino I highly recommend; it is well-marked and worth the extra km.  Another walker and I rustled up an elderly gentleman who opened the church for us, and interpreted what we were seeing in such clear, unaccented Castilian that I understood about half of what he was saying.

Patricia