Day 29 - To Caldas De Reis

Pontevedra was just about beginning to come alive with people going to work when we set out this morning. A few "normal"  people were around but as we walked through the old part of the city it was mainly Pilgrims setting out in small groups, all heading for the bridge over the river.

At the bridge we met Bernard. He had spent last night at one of the hotels. We chatted generally as we crossed the bridge, through the last of the suburbs and out into the countryside. 

Getting out of Pontevedra was much quicker than getting into the city and we were soon walking through farming areas, after some struggles in passing an area where the whole road was under reconstruction.

As it is often the case the first half of the day was spent climbing a long hillside and the second half descending again. That was the pattern today. The actual hill climbing wasn't really a problem but the sun and heat that accompanied it were. Today was yet another cloudless sunny day with the temperature this afternoon when we arrived at Caldas De Reis being 30°C again.

  A lot of the time we were walking through wooded areas, such usually offer good shelter from the sun, but today all of the tracks seemed to be on the edges of the forest so that we didn't benefit from much shade most of the time. At the very top of the climb there was a very good cafe where we had fresh squeezed orange juice whilst chatting to  Colette and Jan. From there into Caldas was totally open countryside and fully exposed to the sun.

A few odd items we passed today.

Today we passed the 50kms marker, not much left to go!

The weather forecast for the next few days is to be cooler with some rain. That could be good news as long as the rain isn't too heavy.

We were very glad to reach Calda De Reis and fairly quickly found a place to stay, another small hotel, similar to last night. A very helpful man soon had us checked in and we then went straight to the bar to get something chilled to drink, even before changing and unpacking. A Dutch couple, who seemed to recognise us invited us over to their table to chat as we drank our beers and snacked on the complimentary tapas. Then it was back to our room for a very welcome shower and a rest.

This evening we planned to eat in the hotel's restaurant.  We went down to the bar at about 7:30pm expecting the restaurant to be open. There was no sign of activity, so we asked the barman if it was in use. "It opens at 8:30" we were told. Rather than going anywhere else we decided to wait, and ordered some beers to drink outside, as we waited.

At 8:30 we went back into the bar, which is next to the restaurant, and waited, having told the barman that we would like to eat. 8:45 came and went without any sign that the restaurant would be opening. At 9:00 we started discussing finding somewhere else but couldn't be bothered now with trying to find an alternative nearby. At 9:15 we paid for the soft drinks that we'd had whilst waiting and left.

So, instead of having a nice meal that were been looking forward to we've had nothing. It's too late now to go anywhere else. Particularly as we wanted to get the bed early, ready for a reasonably early start tomorrow. We could possibly have had something in the bar, but by 8:45 that was already packed with very loud football "fans", not my chosen environment at all.

Perhaps we'll find somewhere that does a good breakfast in the morning.