Vilagarcia 2nd October 

We have been back in Vilagarcia for nearly 1 week now, in mixed weather. There has been quite a lot of rain but we have wandered around getting to know the town and enjoying the walks by the sea. Everyone promenades here (power walking not ambling) and there are outdoor fitness areas for people from 1 to 100! There are also lots of little bars and cafes that provide cheap drinks and bits of cake or Tapas thrown in.

We took the fast train to Pontevedra yesterday to explore there. The train cost 20 Euros for the 3 of us for return tickets and took about half an hour. Lovely new train and spotlessly clean. At one point the train got up to 160 Km/hour (100 mph). There is a lot of work being put into the railway here and it is already a great system. State owned of course…….

Pontevedra is a lovely old town surrounded by lots of new buildings. It is very touristy but at this time of year there are not the so many tourists and we were lucky with the weather. We enjoyed wandering round the little streets and we had a lovely lunch in one of the squares. The “Menu del Dia” is served at lunchtimes during the week all over Spain and is usually 3 small courses, a drink and coffee for about 9 Euros. We splashed out on the slightly more expensive version at 11 Euros yesterday (clams, goats cheese salad, hake with potato and rice pudding including a glass of wine and followed by coffee). We will miss this lovely food at such reasonable prices. 

 

The tourists in their “stepping out” clothes

 

Paza de Lena, our lunch stop

 

Lovely painted tiles in one of the parks in Pontevedra

 

Church of San Bartolome

 

We wandered into a couple of churches, which had wonderful ornate altars and statues. In the one above, when you put 1 Euro in the slot, the the lights came on and lit up the statues!

Sally went home today, so now we are back to just the 2 of us and trying to get the boat ready for a long winter stay in the marina. It has been a lot drier today and the forecast is good for next week so we are hoping to get everything nice and dry before we shut it all up for the winter. We get the feeling that the “winter weather” is now setting in. Galicia gets a lot of rain in the winter, but still only half of what the west coast of Scotland gets! Temperatures never drop below 7 Degrees C and even now it is still 20 Degrees C and I am sitting outside typing this. We are hoping our tans will not have faded completely by the time we get back!