Somewhere around mile 450 of the Camino de Santiago, lunch stops being refuelling and becomes the day's headline. On the stretch from Palas de Rei to Melide — a modest 9.3-mile day on the Camino Francés — the destination matters as much as the walk, because Melide is where you eat Galicia's most famous dish: pulpo a la Gallega, octopus boiled in copper kettles, sliced thick, dusted with paprika and served on round wooden plates.
The walk itself rewards an early start. Leaving Palas de Rei, the route passes through cool woods along an ancient road, then reaches the hamlet of San Xulian, where a small chapel offers one of the day's passport stamps. From there the path drops into a deeply sunken lane with earthen banks roughly 15 feet high on either side — the literal footprint of centuries of pilgrims wearing the soil down. It's one of the Camino's most atmospheric features, and it leads into a towering eucalyptus forest that shades you before the weekend crowds thicken near town.
Melide is more than a lunch stop. It's the official point where the Camino Primitivo merges into the Camino Francés, which explains the sudden surge of walkers and the tour buses parked along the roadside. Some travellers, it seems, bus between stamp points rather than walk the full distance — a sore point among thru-hikers, but a practical option if your legs give out.
Timing is everything in Melide. Arrive around 1pm, as this pair did, and you can eat before siesta shuts the town down — bakeries included. That matters if you want to try melindres, the local anise-flavoured donut. Miss the window and your fallback is the one grocery store still open, which pairs nicely with a bottle of Crianza Rioja drunk on an albergue terrace overlooking the Galician hills.
For anyone planning the final week of a Camino, this stage is a good case study in pacing. Short days let you eat well, beat the siesta clock, and let fast crowds stream past before you start walking. The terrain, too, surprises people: rolling hills and distant mountains give Galicia more drama than many expect from what's often written off as a gentle finish.
Why it matters: if you're walking the Francés into Santiago, Melide deserves a deliberate stop rather than a pass-through. Book an albergue with a terrace, plan lunch for before 1pm, and order the octopus even if tentacles with suckers attached make your companions squeamish.
