my records from Sept 2011 show:
- Vega (before Oviedo) unstaffed, no kitchen but good meals available across the road all day
- Oviedo albergue: big kitchen
- Villapanada - good kitchen, but hospitalero although very helpful wasn't providing meals.
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No shops nearby so we were glad to have hauled what we needed up from Grado where camino passes through shopping area
- Bodenaya; Alejandro and team cooked for everyone
- Campiello Casa Herminia: no kitchen, food provided, a bit average, but great atmosphere sitting in what is simultaneously the village shop and bar with allsorts coming and going.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrino_ ... 8087145851
- Mesa: unstaffed albergue with kitchen with all the necessary bits. But I think we carried all the food from Campiello across hospitales. (There was a small shop/bar in Berducedo before then which I think may have basic ingredients..?). The place was full and all the hot water ran out about 7pm then all water had gone an hour later.
- Castro: no communal kitchen. We enjoyed the meal provided
- Padron; yes good kitchen and it's not too far to walk back into town to get anything you may not have picked up on the way through. We had lunch there
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as well as our evening meal. NB there was only a small supply of alcoholic beer in the dispensing machine and we'd disposed of it all before the others arrived, who had to survive on the non-alcoholic variety or walk back into town (which many of course did)
Cadavo: classic Galicia with modern kitchen but very little to cook with as I recall - possibly they had microwaveable meals from a dispensing machine?
Lugo: didn't visit the kitchen as we all went to the traditional Pulperia in the yard nearby - fantastic wild mushrooms
Ponte Ferreira: when we were there the hospitalero boiled up our chestnuts for us which we'd gathered nearby and served them with white wine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrino_ ... 8087145851
He also cooked us a pretty good meal which we ate in the lovely restored barn. It's a shame if he's not cooking anymore. If you plan to stay there, might be worth an enquiring phone call beforehand to see if he'll cook something up which will give him time to source ingredients etc - because he can definitely cook.
cheers, tom