Where was I? Bando? Cortiñas?

[Bert45]

I walked my first camino in 2003. I kept a diary, which I usually wrote when i arrived at the place I would be staying the night, so some details may have got confused by the time I got there. On the day I walked from Triacastela to Sarria I walked the San Xill route, though I have no memory of it at all. I know that I didn't walk the Samos route. I wrote:"The scenery was beautiful, even in the rain. I took a photo near Bando of a wall of vegetation." I have been unable to find any place called Bando (or anything like Bando) between Triacastela and Sarria. I left Triacastela at about 8:30, and I was writing my diary at 4:53 in Sarria. Google maps tells me that it is 17.9 km from Triacastela to Sarria and it can be walked in a little under 4 hours (3 hours 49 minutes). I arrived in Sarria at about 2 o'clock (5½ hours after starting). I wrote: "About half way there was a café/bar/shop where almost everyone seemed to have stopped or would stop." I'm pretty sure that place was Casa do Franco, since I stopped there last year. I might have stopped there for no more than half an hour. In 2003 I was still using film in my camera, so I have no timings on my photos and no GPS. There is no point in my attaching a photo of the wall of vegetation, as there are no clues to its location in the photo. (The firm that developed the film digitised the photos.) What makes my confusion worse is that I captioned the photo "Cortiñas 102 km Green wall near Bando." I have no idea where I got that information from. But it can't be right, as Sarria is 110 km from Santiago, so Cortiñas would come after Sarria, unless '102 km' is a typo for '120 km'. So, does anybody know of a place called Bando between Triacastela and Sarria, and a place called Cortiñas anywhere on the Camino Francés?

 

[trecile]

It's not on that stage, but there's a webcam from "Bando, San Marcos" that's between O Pedrouzo and Santiago.

TVG en directo | CRTVG

TVG en directo | CRTVG

www.crtvg.es

 

[David Tallan]

I walked my first camino in 2003. I kept a diary, which I usually wrote when i arrived at the place I would be staying the night, so some details may have got confused by the time I got there. On the day I walked from Triacastela to Sarria I walked the San Xill route, though I have no memory of it at all. I know that I didn't walk the Samos route. I wrote:"The scenery was beautiful, even in the rain. I took a photo near Bando of a wall of vegetation." I have been unable to find any place called Bando (or anything like Bando) between Triacastela and Sarria. I left Triacastela at about 8:30, and I was writing my diary at 4:53 in Sarria. Google maps tells me that it is 17.9 km from Triacastela to Sarria and it can be walked in a little under 4 hours (3 hours 49 minutes). I arrived in Sarria at about 2 o'clock (5½ hours after starting). I wrote: "About half way there was a café/bar/shop where almost everyone seemed to have stopped or would stop." I'm pretty sure that place was Casa do Franco, since I stopped there last year. I might have stopped there for no more than half an hour. In 2003 I was still using film in my camera, so I have no timings on my photos and no GPS. There is no point in my attaching a photo of the wall of vegetation, as there are no clues to its location in the photo. (The firm that developed the film digitised the photos.) What makes my confusion worse is that I captioned the photo "Cortiñas 102 km Green wall near Bando." I have no idea where I got that information from. But it can't be right, as Sarria is 110 km from Santiago, so Cortiñas would come after Sarria, unless '102 km' is a typo for '120 km'. So, does anybody know of a place called Bando between Triacastela and Sarria, and a place called Cortiñas anywhere on the Camino Francés?

It seems places change on the Camino. You are talking 20 years ago. I went back a further 20 years (or so) and looked at my guide book from 1985. You can see a Cortiñas in this guidebook after Sarria on the way to Portomarin (also after Barbadelo). See the photo below, where it appears just before Brea near the top of the page. Barbadelo is near the bottom of the page. I also found that if you look at Google Maps today, there is a Cortiñas well south the line between Sarria and Portomarin and a Brea well north, showing how things can be different decades later.

 

[Blue Tang]

"So, does anybody know of a place called Bando between Triacastela and Sarria, and a place called Cortiñas anywhere on the Camino Francés?"

In The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, Gitlitz and Davidson list Cortiñas as being on the route from Sarria to Portomarin between Peruscallo and Lavandeira. The text, however, does not discuss it.

 

[Bert45]

Thanks to both respondents. Google Maps was unable to find Cortiñas (the one near Peruscallo), but it was able to tell me that Peruscallo is 103 km from Santiago, so I seem to have got that right. Why on earth I captioned my photo with the name of a village I would have passed through the day after Sarria, I'll probably never know. 'Probably' leaves room for hope.
Since I did very little research in 2003, I would have been unaware of the existence of Bando near Santiago on the day I was writing the name in my diary. If I had been uncertain of the name of the village, I would have put a question mark in brackets after the name. The only thing that I can conclude is that I mistook the name of Balsa (A Balsa) for Bando, as it's the only village name that begins with B on the San Xil Route. I'll pay more attention in future!

 

[markie6]

Cortinas

 

[Bert45]

Google Maps certainly has limitations. It can't find O Casal, Lavandeira, or San Miguel in that area.