Day 4 was the end of my first camino and was the easiest day of the four. The total distance into Potes was only 7.3 miles, and the journey consisted of an elevation drop of 1100 feet over the first 2.8 miles, and then flat terrain for the rest of the journey.
During the descent, I encountered a cheese shop just as it was opening. I regretted not getting cheese here, but the owner didn't stick around long - he was in a back room after I bought a Coke and before I decided on a cheese.
I believe that the entire journey that day was on back roads - no trails. But I entered into Potes pretty early in the day and was excited to check out the municipal albergue in that town. I completed the 7.3 miles in a leisurely 4 hours.
Potes is a tourist town on the edge of a national park. It isn't that different from towns in the U.S. like Bar Harbor or Springdale, Utah, which also border national parks. (Though it is less tacky.) Lots of souvenir shops, bars and restaurants. But also lots of great stone architecture!
During much of my planning for this trip, Potes was the hardest place to plan for because the municipal albergue there closed down a couple of years ago. I always figured that it would never reopen because local hotel owners (charging over 100€ per night) didn't like the competition.
But about six weeks before I arrived, the albergue opened up again! It required only a donation, and those staying there had to be pilgrims with stamped credentials and could only stay one night, minimizing tourist use. There were only about six people staying there that night, even though it had a capacity of 50. I was the first arrival, and I had never before or since seen any of the others sharing my room. It was right downtown and overlooked the river going through town. In the photo below, it is directly below the red flowers on the right.
The room had a nice window, and I foolishly took the bed closest to that window. I should have done the opposite, because light and outside noise made it hard to sleep even with earplugs and a sleeping mask.
Potes had a really nice market near the albergue, with all kinds of goods being sold.
I used the rest of the day to meet up with a couple of pilgrims from earlier in my journey, find a laundromat and grocery, and walk the four miles up to the Santo Toribio de Liebana monastery and back. When I was researching this trip, I thought that this monastery was really remote - far from any civilization. But I was really wrong on this, as Potes was the largest town I would visit for the first two weeks of my journey. I walked up to get my completion certificate (the "Lebaniega"), and the volunteer spoke to me in English.
The monastery from the outside was not that impressive, but the church interior was nice. The reason for the monastery's importance is that it claims to hold the largest existing piece of the cross that Christ died on. As a result, this monastery was considered of equal importance during the middle ages as Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. I was glad that I made the trip.
And the views back towards Potes were pretty great, as well!
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