16 September, 2016

The day starts chilly and foggy.  We’ve stayed overnight in a hotel near the airport to make it easy to return the hired van.  We’re setting off on the bikes with a run into the main city of Vigo and then turning southwards along the coast road.  The run into the city is all downhill, which is a nice way to start the day.  Once we reach the city centre it proves to be easy to find the dockside and head off on the right road.  So far, so good.  We’re starting to see little bits of blue sky and the sun peaking through now and then.  The city itself seems to be a pleasant place, but we don’t hang around, we want to spin the legs and get going.

On the outskirts of the city we find that there is a cycle track alongside the coast road – perfect.  The weather is turning out to be perfect too, warm sunshine with a bit of a breeze which has blown the fog away.  This part of the world reminds us very much of Wales, very hilly and very green.  Fortunately, the bike path hugs the beach and so is gently undulating with no steep climbs.  Too many hills too soon can be disheartening.  The only time we end up climbing is when the cycle track turns briefly inland and we miss a turn and only realise after climbing a massive hill to a village.  Still, we get a good view.

I’m feeling in fine form, but Ken is complaining that his knee hurts, his back hurts and his legs feel weak – oh dear, let’s hope he picks up or I’ll be abandoning him at the side of the road.  He does perk up a bit after a pit stop for coffee so he can’t be that bad.

We make good progress for a first day and stop at a small village in a hotel overlooking the sea.  We are on one of the pilgrim’s routes to Santiago de Compostela (a couple of our previous tours have followed various ‘Caminos de Santiago’) and so there are quite a few walkers staying in the hotel.  As is often the case, the WiFi is a bit hit and miss and too feeble to upload photos.  Dinner is a bit of a strange business too.  After having checked that we could eat dinner in the hotel when we checked-in, we turned up at 9pm to find everything in darkness and nobody there.  We were just about to go when a waiter and the cook came running up the road from the village, specially to make and serve our dinner.  The vegetarian thing was a bit of a challenge, with questions like “Is chicken OK?”, but it all worked out fine in the end.