Day 3, Camiño de Faros

So, what a surprise, we went walking again the next day.  It was another spectacular day, though the extremely prickly everything slowed some folks down quite a lot.  Gaiters would have been good that day.

We started half way along that point, more or less, walked out to the end, and then walked back.....

We're headed to the tip of the point in the distance....

NB, every single plant in this picture is prickly has hell.

All of those ones too.....

This is the final point!  The furthest west you can go in continental Europe!  Hi Canada!!!

Looking along the cliffs that make up this chunk of Europe....

Adorably, the Camiño de Faros is also occasionally marked by these footprints!  It was so windy there, if you look at my pants you can kinda tell, I had a hard time taking the photo, I kept blowing backwards off the rock!

And a curious doorway....just 'cause.  This is in the town of Cee.

Oh, and a heads up...this is a little nasty....those prickly plants?  This is what I looked like.....

Day 2, the town at the end, Marxía

Once we got to the end of the walk that day, in the town of Marxía, there was a very tempting little hill at the other end of the town and a lighthouse down below that. The group en mass wanted to go into a little bar and eat.

I did not.

The hill was entrancing, and I didn't want to sit in a bar......meh......

So I went on my own, and this is what I saw!

This turned out to actually be on the route!  Who'da thought...though in fact it does make sense as it is called the Camino de Faros - the lighthouse walk.

The little chapel you'll see next made use of the landscape for their bell tower, pretty clever.

There's the chapel

And a view through the tower as I worked my way up the hill.

It was not a big hill.  Everyone else is down there somewhere noshing (on food that made them feel yucky afterwards, sadly)

The other side of the hill was riddled with these tiny little stone surrounded fields.....

This is the church on the point, there is a lighthouse behind it which, strangely, I don't seem to have taken a photo of!

This is the view as you come out of the church, not bad, eh?  Straight up North Atlantic.

They have this weird rock, that everyone goes out to see.  It's a rock.

The view of the church from out on the rocks, I'd be amazed if the Atlantic doesn't introduce itself inside the church from time to time.

See those little stone encircled areas?  They are gardens, all with waist high walls, you see, it is so freaking windy, the tomatoes would blow off the vines and the lettuce would just sail away if they didn't build those walls.

That's a lot of work for some tomatoes.

Clever stairs to get inside. We have these here too, but it was a particularly clear view.

You can see that some of them are being cultivated at this time.

Someone lives here! I imagine it is a she and that she is very old.

Next, Day 3!

Galicia, Camino de Faros, dia 2! Fins a Marxía

Another gorgeous day, this one quite different.  While the first day was all wide open and windblown and savage, this was much more cosy.  Walking through old villages, past tiny little old water mills, there was some beach but mostly it was interior.  Very different and very lovely.

See!

This is a completely typical church for the region we were in.  The bell tower and the mildew.  It is a damp part of the world.

Catalans love trees, there are not so many magnificent specimens,  but this is one of them.  I have to confess, I have also come to love a good tree.

we were walking down from Puena de Porto to the sea along, what is called in Catalan, a ria - which is the part of a river that is tidal.

A lot of the walk was through forests like this:

we came across these old boats, not going to float again, though they surprisingly still had their engines!

This neighbour does.

Already doesn't, most definitively, float.

This is the marker for the Camino de Santiago.  This I will do.  The northern route.

This was one of the markers for the camino de faros.  A lovely design, although the green is not easy to see in this green land.

We walked along the stream here, and there were a series of lovely little mills.

 

We got down to the sea and found some star fish!

 And, of course, the sea.

tomorrow, some photos from the town at the end of this day's walk.

Galicia, day 1

Well, I went off with the Grup de Muntanya to Galicia for 5 days to go walking, and I have to say it was marvelous.  The country there is much wetter, and greener.  It is also more British in its weather, rainy and misty a lot and not as hot.

It is also very very beautiful.  Galicia is generally not as populated and is quite rural.  Also, most people live in houses with yards rather than in tight villages with the gardens outside them.

I'm going to post information and photos based on the days of the trip.  The first day we started in Arou in Galicia, right up in the top corner, and we were doing the Costa de morte, la via dels fuegos (lighthouses, or something along those lines!?

We walked along the coast the whole day, ending in a gigantic lighthouse.  Far in Catalan, Faro in Spanish.

My Spanish, as an aside, has improved enormously on this trip.

Here's some photos:

They have these structures all over the place.  They are/were for storing grain so that the rats cannot get at it.  The pieces of land that people have are pretty small as the inheritance laws do not give everything to the eldest, rather they are divided between the kids (don't know if that was/is only boys or both sons and daughters).  I suppose they couldn't really afford to lose much grain, so it was worth it to build these to safeguard it.

We went by some boats as we were walking right along the coast. I can never resist a boat.

It was really big and wild and savage and open. It does make it hard to get a good photo, especially as I was using my phone since the camera has humidity in it.  Must get that fixed.

That may give you more of an idea.  We finished the day at the lighthouse on the point.

This is a cematary for British sailors off a ship that wrecked on the coast here a long time ago (I cleary have forgotten the details!) 

The shoes aren't quite so pristine, there were few muddy patches, but what there was, was really good stuff.

The day looked like this a lot.  I loved it.

 More boats....

This was a HUGE slug!  Tip of my shoe for perspective.

Boiling bit of North Atlantic.

My practically new pristine white sock at the end of the day!

It was a marvelous day indeed.

The dangers of working with teens and other young people!

Really, you wouldn't think it, but this is a dangerous task.

My working day has been bracketed by Justin Bieber's 'Love yourself' first we played the song, and kinda sang along, then at the end, they were singing it themselves.

In the middle, I sang the same four bars over and over and over and o.v.e.r. in my head.

Honestly.

I have been playing the song on repeat in headphones for the last hour so that I learn the lyrics and I can sing more than 4 bars to myself if it is going to stay stuck there.

Fortunately, it is the one and only Bieber song I like.

The risks I take.

Whatsapp

Whatsapp is, as you might guess, an app, which is HUGE in Catalunya, it's a free download and lets you message, send videos, create groups and leave voice messages, all for free and uses practically no data at all. 

Huge.

The odd thing is that it means that everyone has everyone's phone number.  Your phone number used to be kind of a big deal, you didn't give it out to every kid in your class, nor everyone you know, but now?  No big deal.  Weird, no?

I saw it the other day when I had kids working with their phones to do a writing assignment, they blithely passed their phone numbers around to all and sundry.  Felt weird to me, but to them, as normal as anything.

Much more connected now.  Much.

Another great thing

You know, how the French have that pain au chocolat stuff?  Well, pain au chocolat really means, bread with chocolate.  The Catalans do that too, but kinda classic style, none of that fancy pastry making and butter.......and man is it ever good.

You take a really nice baguette, then insert a slab of dark chocolate then eat it. 

Really, that's it.

Insanely good.  (not for every day by a long shot, but my oh my.)

So tired

We are all so tired this evening.  Even the dog.

Youngest is still in recovery mode, has a terrible cough and is losing her voice.  It doesn't help that her work load has doubled (or tripled) at work, cause the guy she works with has hurt his knee, so she's doing all her classes alone, and all of his as well.  She is wiped.  She will also not be going on the Mountain bike excursion that the school has tomorrow.  She needs to rest.

The man is wiped too, he's been complaining about that for a couple of weeks, and just seems worn down. 

I've been hauling myself around today too - while worrying that I am coming down with Youngest's flu - but I don't seem to be, just weary.

Even the dog was not very excited on his walk. 

Hopefully tomorrow, we'll all feel a little perkier.