La Faba and Triacastela

3 days further along the trail and about 120km to go. Sat we left Villafranca and the trail paralleled the road for most of the way. We made good progress for most of the day but the last 5 km seemed like an eternity. Up hill through beautiful forests but at the end of the day it was long! We stayed at an Albergue that was run by a German confraternity. It was at the top of the mountain - or almost so apart from the restaurant where we ate supper and some farms, there wasn´t much there. Very relaxing. In the evening a group of us came together in the church and sang acouple of English songs, spent time in prayer listening to music from Taize. For the end we all stood around the altar and each group in turn prayed the Lord´s prayer inour own languate: German, spanish, english, croatian and dutch. A good end to a long day. Yesterday we had been warned about the climb to O Cebreiro and the long down hill so we decided to send our packs ahead. The climb was really quite short - in fact easier than the day before. We climbed up to the clouds but they dispersed before we got there. When we arrivedit was a surprise to see gift shops as well as the welcome coffee bar. There were several tourists but again once they had moved on it was a calm serene place. Waited long enough for the church to open. It was beautiful - together with a pilgrim prayer of St Faba. We then had to embark on the rest of our 26km day, only having covered 4km by 9am. The track was mostly on the hill tops with amazing views. Had lunch at Hospital de la condesa with cickens running around the tables. One tried to fight Jenny for her Bocadillo, but Jenny won! At Biduedo we were follwoing the track that went through farm yards when 2 ladies dressed in their aprons met us. They were carrying a plate covered withe a tea towel. Under the towel was a plate full of crepes fresh from the pan and still warm. They offered them to us, sprinkled them with sugar and gave them to us, for a donation of course, but no photos! Not sure about food safe rules here not nearly as strict as at home. the downhil was very long but it wasn´t too hot but we were ready to find an Albergue in Triacastela. Locating our packs was a bit of an issue. Holly has sent hers on several times with no problem but Jenny and I tried 5 places until a lady called the taxi company for us to find out where they were left. Running out of time so till later. Daphne