Short day today as we have a long day tomorrow. We had a leisurely start to the day - coffee in the plaza by the cathedral, sitting in the sun with cafe con leche and bocadilla con jamon. We got chatting to a German walker who used to live in Whangarei!
Today's walk is called the Stone and Water walk - a path of very old Roman water courses, waterways and old mill stones/mill buildings - all covered in moss and ivy.
Lots of locals use this walk and it was nice to see a group of young school kids scrambling across the rocks and enjoying being in nature. The girls were adorable - after saying buenes dias I said 'hello girls' and they smiled and as they passed me each called out hello - language exchange in nature 😊, their teachers were lovely too and as we passed you have that momentary acknowledgement and exchange, brief but heartening.
Looks very similar to New Zealand albeit the trees are myrtle, oak, hazelnut and almond trees but it's very lush and NZie. Had to be careful on the rocks.
There are several places where there are petroglyphs and some of the old mill buildings are hundreds of years old - it almost looks like they will disappear back into nature before too long. The Roman watercourse engineering and water channels were amazing and so critical to being able to mill the wheat grown in the area.
30 degrees today so it was lovely to walk in the shade of the trees and alongside the water for most of today, spotting the odd little trout in the streams and we saw lots of lovely electric blue dragonflies flitting, flying and skimming across the water - very peaceful and restful.
They eat a lot of jamon here- it's great on toast for breakfast with a dash of olive oil. Vegetarians look away:)
We are staying at a touristico rustica, a local village inn which serves the local produce.
It's funny how small things, when travelling, can make a difference. We checked in and our room smelt of Roman plumbing, so the next room we were offered smelled of cigarettes - (they still smoke like chimneys here) and the final room we were offered had a private terrace - jackpot - washing done, temporary line up and washing dry in no time at all (30 degrees). We like to be clean!
We had a lovely dinner, salads, fresh fish, manchego cheese, albarinio local wine - perfecto
Hasta luego!
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