Ribadeo | Taking Our Time

June 27 – Our whirlwind tour of northern Spain continued this morning as we hopped back on the train in Ribadeo and continued east along the coast for a four hour ride to Gijón. Rain threatened, making for some ominous cloud pix out the train window.

Gijón is in the province of Asturias – we are no longer in Galicia, so the train announcements are only in Spanish, instead of Spanish and Galego. It is hailed as a unique city with its own cuisine and culture. We are staying right outside of the Old City, which is on a peninsula jutting north into the Atlantic.

There are Roman ruins here, and a statue of Octavius Caesar.

These old doors were not made with Jim in mind.

The Iglesia San Pedro has a golden chapel that was breathtakingly beautiful in the morning light.

Old battlements face the ocean.

There is a modern sculpture here called Elogio del Horizonte, which is the symbol of the city:

We walked through the old city:

There is a new clock tower built on an old Roman base:

We visited the art museum:

There was a huge retablo upstairs that was sculpted, then pressed into copper. Below is a small section of the scene.

Cool stuff.

We walked back along the boardwalk that bordered a very narrow beach, where some brave souls were swimming on a cool and breezy day.

At the other end of the beach is a statue called Madre del Emigrantes, showing all the emotions of a mother as her children sail away:

Beautiful city!

June 25 – Back on the train this morning for a two hour ride east around Spain’s rocky northern coast, which landed us in Ferrol. This little town is where, back in the day, the English would land by boat to start their Camino Ingles. The Ingles only takes about one week to walk, so Jim thought we should see the town. Some English hikers we met in Santiago said it was very pretty.

Sure enough, Jim found the first shell marker, and we walked the Camino through town.

This is not a beach resort, but more of a working harbor like Norfolk. Lots of cranes and military ships.

A pretty marina too.

It is Sunday, so absolutely no shops are open, but we had a delicious Turkish doner lunch and a walk around town.

Lots of flowers in the Praza España.

The municipal palace:

A pink church:

A spotted car and a spotted dog:

The fortress around the port:

Ferrol has the distinction of being the birthplace of the Spanish dictator Franco. We are only here for one night, and enjoyed seeing this pretty little town.
June 26 – the breakfast buffet at our hotel was truly grand, including two kinds of eggs, exotic fresh fruit, and lots of decadent breads and pastries. At some point very soon, we’re going to have to convince our bodies that we are no longer hiking, and return to a sensible calorie count. Today was not that day.

Walked back to the train station and purchased tickets to our next destination, Ribadeo. This was advertised as a quaint ride on a small gauge modern train, along the beautiful rocky northern coast. The train was indeed modern, but the track ran alternately through mountain tunnels and deep forest, so that all we could see out the windows was either the pure black of a tunnel or densely green boughs growing so close to the tracks that they scratched the windows and roof throughout our ride. So, no stunning pix of the coast – sorry!

The view did open up for the last hour of our three hour ride, but the day turned gray and rainy. Glad we’re not walking!

Ribadeo is a town on the Camino El Norte. As soon as we got off the train we saw the yellow arrows, and followed them past the chapel of Lazarus. Inside was a statue that looks like San Roche eating an ice cream. Hmmmm.

We’re staying in a quaint hotel with no wifi or air con. However, the hotel has a stable of bicycles for guests to ride! Although the skies were overcast, we took some bikes out for a spin around town, and only got a little wet.