melaniehyers
A Day of Rest
My back is seizing up.
I hope I can keep walking.
Yoga, ibuprofen, walking without a backpack– the plan for the day.
I don’t remember with exactitude how the trekking was from our stay at Porciña Muñiz, but I remember it was wet. The drizzly, foggy morning turned to bouts of pouring rain. We didn’t get started until late, always many hours later than I prefer. There were several false starts as we began our days trek.
I recall rolling hills, lots of green, horses and less singing birds but birds singing nonetheless even on this cold wet day.
When we finally arrived in Lugo I was exhausted! I think we were both exhausted. It was a short day, but the cold and wet coupled with another hurried lunch in the rain — sliced tomato and tuna on delicious Galician bread, eating while sitting on a farmers woodpile, hunkering down before the next downpour, left me feeling off-center, and my lower back screamed at me… Like an arthritic thermometer reacting to a cold day!
There is so much to see in Lugo but the moment we opened the door to our hotel, my back said, “bed!”I was going nowhere.
We would stay in Lugo for another night giving us Monday to peek around.The next morning I woke with an all too familiar ache, though one I haven’t felt in some time… I was afraid my back was going out!! Stretches, ibuprofen, more stretches, a walk around Lugo… A day of resting from the Camino.
Lugo —well it was raining, my back was hurting, it was cold, what can I say, I wasn’t in the best moods to “tourist” around, but we managed to step into the Cathedral and peek around while a service was underway, we saw the ruins of a Roman Villa, now underground as the city has been constructed over it. Some of the amazing tile work was still in place, though not as incredible as La Olmeda in Pedrosa de la Vega, Castile and Leon. That place is a palatial, well intact representation of an upperclass Roman villa, which I will definitely be writing about!
For lunch I finally got to enjoy a Caldo Gallego, yum! Especially on a cold day. Potatoes, alubias, and lots of, but not enough in my book, of grelos!! Collards that is!
They cultivate collards, and potatoes up and down these hills in Galicia, it’s fantastic!
Perfect soup for the place and weather! I was happy.
We did some window shopping, and rambled up and down streets inside the walled city, then made our way along the wall…the views were nice but obstructed by rain and clouds.
At the end of the day we popped into a bakery and had some of Galicia’s finest empanadas. One with tuna and the other with meat. And a dessert of churros with coffee, not chocolate, darn, but tasty nonetheless.
It was cold and the rains began. We returned to the hotel to rest and prep for the coming day.
