Norte from Avilés to Ribadeo; Camino del Mar from Ribadeo to Ferrol
Post by Wynette: We’ve had excellent coffee on this trip. Some better than others but many many that made us ooh and aah. I think the best we’ve ever had in Spain. Every bar has a particular brand of coffee. We especially like this kind, Montecelio.
Post by Wynette: Well, hope this isn’t getting too boring. Another (truly) awesome walk. We started with a 7 mile taxi ride so that the walk would be doable for us. Well, so it wouldn’t be a killer. We walked about 6 miles. We had planned to walk further but about 3/4 way through I turned my ankle and got a sprain so we took a shortcut to our pensión. The sprain is a bummer, but I don’t think it is a bad sprain. Right now it is sore and a little swollen. We plan a short walk tomorrow and will see how it goes. In the meantime, here in our cozy room, I’ll talk about our walk today.
The taxi driver left us off near a beach so we started pretty close to sea level. We climbed a forest trail. We came to a mirador, what the Spanish call a scenic lookout.
After that, the forest gave way to mini-moors and great views.
It all felt very remote. We didn’t see a single person for the first five miles of the walk. A small sign announced that another mirador was coming up. I couldn’t imagine what it could be because everything was pretty much an amazing mirador.
Charlie got to the mirador a minute before me. He called, “you’ll never believe what’s here.” Well, in city parks around Spain, we’ve often seen little spaces with workout equipment. That’s what was at this mirador. It was strange because the place felt so remote. Gotta say, these Spanish people are a little wacky. (To be fair, we came to a town a mile or two after that so it could be that this equipment gets used regularly.)
We had planned to have a picnic breakfast at the mirador. There were no benches but we did have a couple of low exercise bikes to sit on. We ate boiled eggs (boiled last night in our fancy hotel room electric tea kettle) and cheese and apples and then put on our rain gear because rain was imminent. The weather changes fast around here.
We saw more beautiful ocean stuff coming down and then finally came to a small town.
Shortly after that I sprained my ankle so instead of heading along another headland, with miradors no doubt, we walked the highway to O Vicedo. Had our first coffee in a bar in town and then headed for the hotel.
What era are these from?
Being repaired in dry dock. Missing it’s middle. I guessed it was a tugboat.
Having coffee. Always the TV. Always the old guys (and we include Charlie in that group).
Post by Wynette: We walked a whopping 4.5 miles today. Wanted to stay in Viveiro from having read an article in the Telegraph promoting it to British tourists. They said Viveiro is a good place to use as home base and visit wonderful nearby towns and beaches. We can attest there are many of those. Turns out most of the Viveiro hotels, etc. are out of town, for people with cars. The only place near the center was Viveiro Urban Hotel so we made a reservation. We didn’t realize at the time it was a four star hotel. Cost was 77. We prefer to pay 40 or 50, but didn’t have a lot of choice if we wanted to be in town (i.e., not walk 1 or 2 miles for a meal). It certainly is fun to stay in such a nice hotel. Rooms in VUH in high season are 150. Now that Holy Week is over we are back in low season where we always seem to be the only ones in the hotel. Tomorrow night we plan to be in a much smaller town and have a place reserved for 30 euros.
We checked into VUH about noon, rested a bit, then went to a nearby bar/restaurante for a menú del día. It was great. Photo of menu below. We have been remembering lately to ask for ensalada (salad) instead of the fried potatoes that nearly always come with the menús. They always seem happy to do that. The salads have been simple lettuce, tomatoes, and onions with oil and vinegar, but very fresh good lettuce. Often good tomatoes as well.
