We had the most extraordinary weather today, hailstones, thunder, lightning and an absolutely torrential downpour which caught us out in the open with no opportunity to hide. We got wet 😞.

Still, let’s start from the beginning.

We left after an abortive attempt at breakfast where we’d stayed last night. Dorothy tried to order some toast and coffee but was persistently ignored by the young lady and stomped out in disgust dragging a somewhat disappointed and hungry husband behind her.

We’d left it late to start so most people were out and about including these two young kids playing in the fountain.

Galicia is a very wet part of the world and still boasts small areas of temperate rain forest.

Unfortunately our late start meant that we were inadvertently part of a huge group of peregrinos most of whom had small back packs signifying the occasional, corporate walker whose support buses were dotted at strategic intervals along the way.

No time for a quick dart into the woodland to relieve oneself, Dorothy suffering more than me.

It was whilst we were still negotiating the forest that the heavens opened with a vengeance. Preceding the deluge were ever louder claps of thunder until both lightning and thunder were directly overhead and vast numbers of small hard white objects raced down from the clouds hitting us with incredible force. With nowhere to hide we simply had to accept the unwanted assault which lasted the better part of 20 minutes or so. Thoroughly drenched we emerged from the forest to find this chap barking at us.

The clouds remained threatening but thankfully more heavy rain held off until we reached the hotel.

I particularly liked the solitary nature of this image

And the humour of the following

Apparently this route has its origins in a Roman road

Which I suspect is utterly irrelevant to local inhabitants

This region has lots of small household size vineyards with the vines usually found suspended from structures supported by these large thin rectangular blocks.

I’ve not noticed these blocks used elsewhere in Spain. Presumably there is at least one large local quarry where these things originate. They must be cheap as the chips that they so resemble to be so widespread.

There are some lovely clumps of flowers dotted around the route

With the occasional chicken (s)

Finally, as we approached the hotel, fleeing a new deluge we saw …

The hotel is great, we’ve had a thoroughly refreshing shower, our walking clothes are festooned around the room attempting to dry before they’re needed once more tomorrow and we’ve just polished off some more beer in my case and wine in Dorothy’s.

Buen camino