Post by Wynette: I woke up today feeling a bit under the weather. Nothing bad. Just on the edge of maybe getting a cold or fighting something off. So, we decided to do an easy day. We walked about 3.5 miles alongside the ocean out of Foz and then caught the Feve train to do the final 8 miles to Burela where we had a hotel reservation. So glad we didn’t miss that 3.5 miles, even though it was cold and breezy.
We got to the train station sooner than expected and were lucky there was a bar nearby. So we had a great breakfast. Once again amazed they only charged us 8.50 for 4 fried eggs, 4 toasts, butter and jam, and 3 large coffees. (Coffee was so good Charlie had two.)
At the train station, as we were waiting for the train, a family joined us waiting. It was a retired couple about our age, their daughter and son-in-law, and their young daughter. We’ve been noticing pointy things on top of all the hórreos and a little earlier I told Charlie I was going to ask someone about that soon. So this seemed like a good opportunity to ask. Turned out the daughter spoke excellent English. She explained that the points were to break up snow on the roofs, but her father pointed out that they don’t get snow here on the Atlantic Coast. So they all agreed they have no idea what the pointy things are for.
The family explained that they were not from around here, but from Burgos. We said we’d been to Burgos twice when doing the Camino. They said they had a place in a small town near Burgos on the Camino and had noticed in the last ten years there have been more and more American pilgrims. Hardly any before that. We told her about the movie The Way that came out in 2010 that had introduced so many Americans to the Camino.
I asked her what was the small town and she said Itero de la Vega. We told her we loved that little town and stayed there on both Caminos. We described where we stayed and what we remembered about the town. They were amazed how much we remembered because, she said, you go through so many towns on the Camino. Then they said they also owned a house in Comillas, in Cantabria, on the Camino del Norte. We had stayed in that town last year, and remembered how much we liked it. Again, they were amazed we remembered.
The family was in Foz for Semana Santa. They were just riding the train a few miles and back just to let their little girl experience the train. She was a cutie. Her name was Abril, which means April.
One thing I noted was when they talked about the Camino Frances, what we sometimes refer to as “the main Camino”, they called it the “Camino principal”.
