We’ve stopped for the day in a lovely little village a little over 5 km outside of Grandas de Selime. There are half a dozen houses, a small old fashioned family hotel which we’re staying in and an albergue/youth hostel.

When we arrived we were greeted by a girl only a little older than Anwen who was clearly on the look out for us. (The nice chap in reception in Oviedo had rung them on our behalf last night to say that we’d be arriving around 4 o’clock).

Our room is great and we’re having dinner here at 7:30, with, I suspect, all the family. In the meantime we were directed to the bar in the albergue from which we’ve just returned having had bottles of water and beer and a plate of various meats – perfect for vegetarians 😉.

The albergue is very popular, filled with a variety of travelers and (presumably) peregrinos. A small group of three chaps and a rather personable young lady were chatting cheerfully, the young girl clearly flirting with the eldest of the three lads. From the bits of conversation we were able to pick up it sounded like the boys had been walking from Switzerland while the girl sounded as if she came from one of the Benelux countries. They’d walked together for the last couple of days at least.

They were joined shortly after we arrived by a much louder, buoyant female who hailed from Denmark. She’d clearly met the eldest lad at some point over the last few days and made it perfectly clear that she was extremely pleased to see him again, in a very friendly bonhomie voice and in the process putting the other young lady’s nose well and truly out of joint 😊.

Sitting out in the warm sunshine, listening to the local cows mooing to each other about deeply meaningful subjects relevant only to cows, cockerels establishing priority over their harems and swallows whistling overhead is a quite perfect antidote to the insanity that is Trump and brexit. Listening in on other people’s conversations is also surprisingly pleasant 🤔.

I’ll end for now with a couple of pictures intended to evoke the idyllic charm of the Asturian countryside.

And to give you a favour of the local architecture.

And finally some hydrangeas 👍.

Buen Camino