Palas de Rei

The first thing you notice is the rucksack traffic lights. Someone has painted yellow arrows on the tarmac of the N-547, directing boot-sore walkers left to the albergue, right to the cash machine, straight on to the next coffee. Palas de Rei sits exactly 68 km from Santiago, dead centre of the Camino Francés, and the town has learnt to choreograph the daily stampede without missing a beat. That efficiency can feel underwhelming if you arrive expecting cobbled romance; stay a couple of hours beyond check-out time, however, and the Camino veneer peels away to reveal a working market centre that serves one of Spain’s emptiest agricultural comarcas.

A Town That Works, Then Stops

Palas de Rei’s high street is a 300-metre run of granite-fronted shops, most of them open Monday-to-Saturday 09:00-13:30, closed for lunch, maybe open 17:00-20:00, maybe not. The Dia supermarket is the exception: it keeps British hours, 09:00-21:00, and on Sundays an emergency shutter comes down at 14:00 sharp. Stock up before then or you’ll be surviving on crisps and Estrella until Tuesday. The pharmacy next door sells Compeed in catering packs – a silent nod to the blister economy – while the Abanca cash machine inside the branch never levies a foreign fee, a small mercy in a region where even the municipal car park meter is cash-only.

Walk fifty metres east and you hit the half-finished estates that UK bloggers photograph like modern ruins. Skeletons of 2008-era apartment blocks stand beside completed but unoccupied houses, their roller shutters half-down, gardens gone to seed. It’s an eerie welcome, yet the ghost streets double as free parking once the official bays fill with hatchbacks and hay-stacked tractors. By evening the abandoned blocks echo with something more lively: the Casa do Concello courtyard hosts free folk concerts most July nights, the council’s attempt to keep pilgrims from bolting after one beer.

Romanesque in the Back Lanes

The parish church of San Tirso anchors the main square, its Romanesque ankles visible beneath eighteenth-century skirts. Inside, the air smells of wax and freshly mopped stone; a single bulb illuminates a polychrome St James in pilgrim garb. You can see the building in ten minutes, which is precisely why everyone should hire a car the following morning. Five minutes south on the LU-633 the landscape unravels into cow pastures and oak scrub; another five brings you to Vilar de Donas, a former Templar monastery turned parish church that contains Galicia’s best-preserved Gothic fresco cycle. Ring the bell and the key-keeper appears in slippers, happy to switch on the lights so you can stare at 15th-century knights wielding swords that look suspiciously like Santiago’s souvenir models. Entry is free; the English leaflet is honest about what’s reconstruction and what’s original – a refreshing change from Spanish heritage sites that pretend nothing has been touched since 1185.

If you’ve already succumbed to Romanesque fever, add San Xulián do Camiño and Santa María de Merlán to the list. Both sit down single-track lanes where Google’s car icon spins in confusion. Expect stone bell towers, moss-coated cruceros and the occasional dairy herd blocking the road. None charge admission; all are kept unlocked by neighbours who appreciate a polite “bos días”.

The Castle That Survived Everyone

Four kilometres west, the Pambre river loops round a rocky outcrop crowned by the Castillo de Pambre. Built in the 14th century, slighted by the Irmandiños peasant revolt, restored by an enlightened count, it is now the best-preserved medieval fortress in Galicia – and entry is €4, less than a pint of London bitter. Walk the battlements and you realise why English visitors get territorial: the curtain walls are intact, the towers have proper arrow slits, and there’s even a working portcullis. Interpretation boards are in Castilian and Galician, but the custodian keeps laminated English sheets behind the counter. Allow an hour, two if you pack the picnic you should have bought in Dia.

Below the castle the river path offers flat shade on hot days. The soil stays damp year-round, so proper footwear matters; flip-flops will see you sliding into cowpats. Kingfishers flash turquoise under the alder branches, and if you follow the trail south for twenty minutes you reach a medieval bridge pilgrims use as an alternative escape route when the road feels too brutal.

What to Eat Between Stages

Galicia’s interior is dairy country, so menus lean on cream, cheese and beef rather than the shellfish platters of the coast. Look for the Arzúa-Ulloa denomination stamp on pale, waxy wheels that taste like a milder Caerphilly. Pulpería O’Pote on Rúa do Peregrino will serve you pulpo a la gallega by the media ración – enough tender octopus for one, dusted with pimentón and served on a wooden platter still warm from the kitchen. If tentacles feel a step too far, Bar O’42 (yes, the name is deliberate) does a full English for €7.50 and keeps two craft-beer taps flowing with locally-brewed IPA. It’s where British walkers congregate to complain about snorers and compare blister tape brands.

The €11 menú del día appears in most cafés: soup or salad, meat stew, pudding, bread and a choice of wine or water. Quality swings from school-dinner bland to grandmother sublime; the trick is to follow the farmers. If the tractor count outside exceeds three, the caldo inside will be decent.

Moving On, or Staying Put

Palas de Rei makes no pretence of being a destination. The council website lists sights in a single paragraph, and even the tourist office keeps irregular hours. Yet that lack of self-promotion is oddly relaxing. Beds cost €8 in the municipal albergue if you queue before 13:00, €20-€35 in small guesthouses that smell of fabric softener and freshly baked bread. A hire car transforms the place into a base for day trips: Lugo’s Roman walls are 35 minutes north, the vineyards of Ribeira Sacra 45 minutes south, and the Atlantic at Fisterra an hour and a half west along empty motorways.

Come Sunday night the streets empty, the bars pull down half-shutters, and the only movement is the steady stream of head-torches bobbing out of town towards Melide. Stand on the bridge over the Pambre and you’ll hear a chorus of walking poles clicking against tarmac, a sound somewhere between applause and rainfall. In that moment Palas de Rei feels less like a checkpoint, more like a heartbeat keeping the Camino alive. Stay, watch, then leave before the cleaners hose down the square at dawn.