Thirty-five days were spent in Portugal travelling from the south east to the north west. Admittedly it’s been mostly on the coast, but we feel like we’ve got a sense of the country. We left Caminha at 9:30am and as we crossed the border in to Spain we lost an hour; dang there’s all the clocks and watches to change again, but the sunset won’t be until a very late 10:20pm this evening.
At Tui, we bought some gbs for our Spanish wi-fi, the price seems to have gone up a lot, oh well, we do need it. Then we searched for a supermarket; we needed food too. We drove nearly sixty kilometres before we spotted a small ‘Dia’ just north of Pontevedra. We bought some basics, but we passed on their mouldy cherries. Luckily we found a roadside seller further up the road and bought a kilo of huge fat red ones, it was hard not to eat them all straight away. We turned off the N550 near Carracedo and crossed the Rio Ulla and joined the motorway that followed the Ria de Arosa towards Ribeira. Nearing 4pm, we pulled in to camping Ria de Arosa and threw the towels and a pile of clothes in the machine. Just as we hung it on the line, the rain started, dang, again. There was no dryer in the laundry, so we put the awning out, strung up lines beneath it, put the drying rack out the window and turned the heater on in the bathroom to turn it in to a drying room. I opted to stay home while Rodney went over to the bar to watch the soccer, so all in all it was a pretty dull day; probably the first one on this trip when we haven’t taken a single photo. Let’s hope tomorrow is a little more interesting.
We woke up to the sounds of a cock crowing and raindrops bouncing on the skylight above us; driving day weather. So we set off north again; Ribeiro, Cabo Corrubedo with its lighthouse and sand dunes, Xuño, Noia, the bridge over the Rio Tambre and round to Esteiro. So much of the area was under cultivation in tiny fields and ‘allotments’; corn cabbages, potatoes, all sorts of vegetables seemed to surround every house and every village. Galicia is reputedly the wettest part of Spain and looking at how green it was and the fact that the drizzle was still splatting on the windscreen, we believed that to be true. Everywhere seemed very run down and with no sun shining on the beaches, even they looked gloomy. Muros was the first town that looked like worth stopping in and not just because the sun had come out at last. But somewhere along the morning’s route we made the decision to continue on another 55kms to see Cabo Fisterra, better known in the old shipping forecast as Finisterre, now FitzRoy.
A common sight in Galicia are horreas which are small granaries or storehouses sitting on mushroom shaped staddle stones to prevent rats and mice getting in. Most of them are made from granite and some of them are hundreds of years old. When we sighted the first one, we thought it was a tiny chapel, then thought maybe they were for chickens, it almost became a game trying to work out the most ridiculous use for them. Finally we worked out what their real purpose was, though a lot of people seemed to be using them as tool sheds nowadays. The route from Muros through San Francisco (we can confirm it looks nothing like the one in California), Louro, O Viso, O Pindo and up to Ezaro was much more scenic. At Ezaro a sign to the Miradoura Noveiro led us up a side road to a hydro-electric station, not so exciting, but a short walk from the car park led us to a spectacular waterfall at the head of the Rio Xallos.
After a quick sandwich we carried on around the huge bay to the very end of the road, Cabo Fisterra. Many pilgrims and hikers who walk the Camino Trail, or ‘Way Of St James’ to Santiago de Compostela continue on to Cabo Fisterra and consider it the finale. For Rodney, it was nice to see the lighthouse from the land this time, having previously only seen it from ships at sea. Besides the large lighthouse, there are beacons, monuments, crosses, sculptures and sadly, tied to most of them, or spread all over the rocks, walkers have left clothes, scarves, hats, sandals and boots; it looks a mess. Amongst them there are many burnt patches which are the result of symbolic pyres made by the walkers, which also look dreadful. It is a beautiful and perhaps symbolic spot on this earth but again it has been spoiled by man.
We drove back to San Francisco to Camping A’Vouga to spend the night, or as it turned out three nights, right by the beach. As soon as we had set up camp, I spent a while watching dolphins swimming offshore whilst chatting to a couple from Northampton. We almost ate our meal at Spanish time, very late, but then I guess we’re going to have to get back in the swing of that, for the next few weeks.
We got up terribly late on Wednesday, ate breakfast at 10:30 and then after a long chat with David and Nicky, from Brittany, who had prime position at the campsite (front row, water views), we strolled along the beach to San Francisco. There was not a lot there, two restaurants, a hairdresser and a shop that sold a lot of ‘not a lot’. At least they had some fresh bread and we bought a bundle of green beans, then wound our way back along the beach.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and then we spent the evening sitting outside Nicky and David’s campervan for five hours chatting and drinking and nibbling and having a thoroughly good time. They’re a lovely, fun couple who, like us, are praying for some decent weather tomorrow so that we can all enjoy the beach.
On Thursday morning the four of us got a lift with the campsite owner, into Muros, which saved us a 45-minute walk. Rodney got a much needed haircut and the rest of the time the four of us kept bumping in to each other; it’s not a very big place. Rodney and I were going to walk back, but we thought the sun might come out enough for a beach visit, so we shared the car back to the campsite at 1pm. Unfortunately the clouds came back, the temperature dropped and showers started up, so we ended up reading and vegging out, sitting inside Eileen. At least we had the time to get another load of washing done and used the bathroom as a drying room. I’ll bet when we leave here tomorrow and head for the city of Santiago, the sun will come out for a perfect beach day………..
