destacados

The new hostel that will open its doors these days in O Saviñao will be added in the near future another in Carballeda de Valdeorras.

The supply of accommodation in the different routes of the Way of St. James to respond to the increase in the number of pilgrims who travel them continues to grow. Next week is expected to enter into operation the new public hostel for pilgrims conditioned by the Xunta de Galicia in the Lugo municipality of O Saviñao (Winter Way) and in the near future will also begin to serve a new facility in the Ourense town of Carballeda de Valdeorras. This was announced by the president of the Xunta in functions, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, during the visit made on Wednesday to O Saviñao to see the new facilities there, an act in which also took part the first vice-president, Alfonso Rueda; the director of Tourism of Galicia, Nava Castro, and the president of the Galicia Tourism Cluster, Cesáreo Pardal.

The new hostel in O Saviñao is located in the old bishop’s manor house of Diomondi and has 34 beds, as well as toilets, kitchen and leisure areas, a laundry room and a space for parking bicycles. The facilities have also been adapted for use by people with reduced mobility or hearing or sight problems.

Its entry into operation is part of a programme of actions that will allow Galicia to have a total of 78 public hostels and more than 4,200 beds by the end of this year. Thus, Ferrol will have its first public hostel before the end of the year, which is being fitted out in the old Hostelry of the Sea House, and similar actions are planned in A Coruña, Piñor and Riós.

These hostels will help to cope with the increase in pilgrims that is being recorded this year, with figures that not only have already equalled those prior to the pandemic, but are even improving the best historical records, as has happened during last April, when a new record of compostelas was established for that month: more than 38,000.