Ribadeo

Today we woke up to a slightly less painful ankle for me, and a much worse foot for Fiona after she did something to it yesterday. So, after hanging around at the hostel until the cleaners arrived we walked into the town centre and parked ourselves at a cafe until it was time to get a train here. Various people we know came by and joined us for a bit including the guy from Canarias who was so tired he had his shirt on inside out. Opposite was a church where they were laying out decorations for 1st communion and corpus so I had a chat with someone there about the tradition as it's not something they did in the south. Dyed salt pictures on the ground of each child.
The train is a tiny narrow gauge thing with 2 carriages, and doesn't run more than twice a day, and not on time. Some local ladies explained that this is because there are often objects and landslides on the line. We enjoyed chatting to them, so the wait was fine. Ribadeo is in Galicia, so subtlety different in architecture and of course language. We accidentally booked a great little hotel on the waterfront for only 52 euros a night, with a fabulous view of the port and estuary, and a lovely terrace to sit on. There is even a quiet bit of water down below in the marina, which looks cleaner than the Thames so I had a lovely swim this afternoon as I couldn't be bothered to walk to the bathing area. It is 30c. Got a few funny glances but it was worth it. Lunch was good, and there was live music in the street with people dancing. Supper also good and met some English expats from Casares who reminded me why I don't live around there anymore, although they were nice.
We were always planning a rest day, but two is good as hopefully it will give my foot time to recover for the big hills coming up. It feels strange to sit still though.Læs mere