Friday, March 28, near Arcade

We spent Thursday night in Pension Maricaibo in the center of Porrino, leaving before breakfast as no one was around at 7:30 a.m.

We walked out of the city in some interesting morning light, and even saw a few patches of sun on distant hills.  We were glad to leave the highways and climb through country lanes, hearing crowing roosters and seeing blossoming apple trees and budding grapevines.  At the charming, clean, pedestrianized hamlet of Mos, high on a hillside, we stopped for coffee, about two hours from Porrino.  There was an Albergue that probably would have been fine, as the location was so lovely.

A whole group of Californians arrived at the cafe, and we later encountered others on the steep climb out of Mos.  They were a group of 12 with one priest, staying in hotels and having their luggage transported.  They were young as well as old.

We rested briefly in a park at the top of the climb, and somehow missed the church just off the route, passed a Roman miliario (milestone), and made our way downhill for another couple of hours, sometimes on narrow lanes where cars traveled at breakneck speeds.

We had taken off layers on the climb, and put some on again as we descended.  It was fairly long slog along country lanes and then through suburban streets and along rather dreary roads to the old part of Redondela, where we encountered a woman on a bench who insisted on leading is through the streets,talking a mile a minute in Spanish or perhaps Gallegos, to the best cafe.

Unfortunately, the empty tables we found in the square belonged to a different establishment, so we ordered our ham and cheese sandwiches from them.

I connected with the cafe wifi
And found a reply in very hard to decipher English from Casa Anton to call the from Hostal Jumboli about, 3 km farther on, and someone would pick us up.  I wrote back that we were in Redondela and had no phone, but would try to get someone to call for us.

So an hour or less later a sleek car slows and a man says "Linnea" and he is a driver from the hotel, who whisked us here in minutes, talking nonstop in English and Spanish and giving us a tour, barely avoiding causing accidents. At the hotel door we were greeted and whisked upstairs to this lovely room overlooking the Rio Vigo.  Cold, though!

Up. And off to Pontevedra this Saturday morning.