My eyes are squinting from adding in lots and lots more tiny little
places in Galicia that now boast an albergue, a hotel or a café. It
sometimes seems as if there’s somewhere to stay or eat every kilometre
of the camino in Galicia. Part of me (the squinting part) is cursing
these entrepreneurial Galicians.
But the more reasonable part
of me is glad that the people who live in some of these tiny hamlets
are maybe able to make a living in their place of birth. It certainly
makes a change from the later decades of the twentieth century, where
rural Galicians migrated to cities, or even overseas to South America,
and farmers and fishers gave up their traditional livelihoods in the
face of globalized competition.