Nice to have a good hot shower today before we hit the road, the aire was a good choice and was surprisingly quiet overnight. The road out is a real suburban one with areas that look more like identical sets of estate houses than is usual in Spain. It then runs past the airport and it’s endless car parks, but all the time there are Camino walkers alongside, mostly on the road but occasionally they get a separate lush green path. Just a brief stop at a pharmacy for some paracetamol which come as a box of 40 , 1g pills that look like they are for horses!
We’ve come up with a bit of a plan based on some fb tips. Our chosen road varies in size, it start narrow through woodland then widens through countryside that almost looks English! Theres a lot of blossom covered trees in farmed rows as well as the ubiquitous eucalyptus forests.
When we go back onto a small road we stop at a lovely picnic spot by a hermitage which gets favourited as a future overnight possibility. Then onwards passing a huge and impressive monastery before we get to the point we can see Lugo in the distance.
There’s an aire just outside of the walls beside a sports centre. Whilst we are unlikely to stay the night it feels like a sensible place to park so we head straight there. It’s s large flat carpark with half a dozen or so vans in it an, overlooked by a huge green park and looking out over distant countryside on the other side. It feels really quite pleasant and airy considering its proximity to the town centre.
We climb up to the park and walk through it to get to the walls , only about 15 mins even with my hobbling! We werent quite prepared for the entrance , as we walked through the arch we were greeted by the site of the cathedral , very obviously modelled on the one on Santiago and sitting in an empty square in the sunshine.
Coffee time! There a bar on the square that’s pretty much empty and has a table in the shade that’s perfect!
The gate we enter through is one with direct access to the top of the wall so once we’ve had our coffee we go up the ramp.
It’s super impressive, you can see the wall disappear off in both directions so we chose one and walk. Probably a bit mad , it’s the middle of the day and sane people are inside sheltering from the heat but that also means that it’s very quiet!
We walk the entire perimeter of the only intact Roman walled town in the world! Not as long as it sounds it’s about 2km in total and a really lovely way of seeing the town, although a lot of the buildings adjoining it and not the most attractive. There are areas where you can see down shopping streets, pretty squares or slightly nicer neighbourhoods, but also there are areas where old and ramshackle houses are propped up by the walls.
Having completed the circuit it’s time for another break, we walk into the centre of town and sit in one of the main squares where we have a soft drink. It’s getting really and it’s very frustrating to discover that lots of cafés say they sell ice creams don’t have any! Today would’ve been the perfect day for that. After a drink we go for another little wander down some side streets and end up in another small square where the parochial museum is.
By now is time for another coffee and this time it’s a coffee shop with some fancy cake, so chocolate cake it is and I sit a while longer whilst Graham has a really good look around the museum. He comes out having shortlisted the bits he knows I will like the most. I go back in and see some stunning fused glass as well as some of the permanent exhibits like Roman mosaic floors and the stone carvings kept in the cloisters of the original building.
We’re both really impressed by a photographic exhibition too. It’s a really good museum, so much larger and more interesting than it looks from the outside, and another one that has no entry fee at all.
I’ve had enough time on my feet now, our options are to hang on until the evening and have a meal here, cause it looks like there are lots of really good bodegas and pinxos bars, or theres still time for us to move on somewhere else. As we have a fair bit of driving planned for tomorrow we decide on the latter.
As we leave the city we drive by lovely riverside walks and countryside. Might be back to this one!
Ive identified a park-up possibility near a reservoir half an hour or so away and we aim for that, we have to fight a lot with Google maps, which is desperate to keep us on the main road when we’d much rather be on a small one, but we won the fight.
It’s well worth the effort, we see our first storks of the holiday, first in a field then in nests on telegraph poles. It’s a much more agricultural area now with as many garages selling tractors as cars. It’s a really different feel and would’ve been missed completely had we stuck to the main road.
The reservoir is 8km down a single track road but worth the effort. We arrive just as the sun sets and the last picnickers leave.
It’s alive with birds and a cuckoo calls constantly in the last hour of light. By the time it’s dark it’s just frogs and toads making the noise. Graham just misses a toad when walking on the path. There are some nice looking houses nearby with lights on, but no noise. Feels like we have another good night!
Cumulative mileage: 1290
Overnight: P4N 27345 Vilasouta reservoir.
Spending : Pharmacy €2.50, Coffees €5 Drinks €6 Coffee and cake €7.50, Sandwich shop €2.50
We’ve come up with a bit of a plan based on some fb tips. Our chosen road varies in size, it start narrow through woodland then widens through countryside that almost looks English! Theres a lot of blossom covered trees in farmed rows as well as the ubiquitous eucalyptus forests. 
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