Thursday 14 Jun - Madrid to Luarca

I woke at 630 and quietly packed what I could with out making any noise. Made myself a cup of tea that had a slight coffee taste as I used the coffee maker to heat the water. Read  "Wicked" until Maureen woke up around 730 and then packed all my noisy things. crinkly packages and such. Had a nice spinach and cheese omelet with fresh tomatoes for breakfast.  

Maureen had bought way too much food.
  She packed a few things that she wanted and I packed up the pasta and sugar for the first refugio that we stayed in that had cooking facilities. I had a shower and then read until nine. Did the dishes with Maureen and we were set.
Took down the garbage about 910. Our apartment was on the top floor, but there was an elevator so it was OKay. I waited while Maureen paid and at 920 we left for the station. 

Caught the metro  at the plaza del Sol and we were at the station at about 1010 am. Our train loaded at 1040 out of gate 19. There was a moment of confusion on the platform when I didn't understand that we had to put our bags through the security scanner on the platform but it passed quickly and without incident. 

We found our coach #9 and our seats 5 c was mine  and to our great pleasure discovered that the economy class on the train is pretty darn nice.  There were big comfy seats and movies to watch  with free earphones and  those little fold down tables to write or eat on. 
The train left right on time.

 Madrid is in a dry areA Like the Quesnell area or on the way to the grand canyon except there were very pretty little villages along the way,  but our train did not stop. 

It was the express. It was electric and very quiet. Poppies along the tracks.  Pretty forests with little round trees and each tree with its own little round shadow. Very surreal.  very much like paintings I have seen but never thought were from real landscapes. Wrote in the journal to get caught up but Maureen was chatty.  She said that I could give her a copy of my journal. I say no. She can keep her own journal on this trip. We are each having our own camino with our own journals. The towns went past. Maureen went for coffee. I had some omlet and crackers with cheese and tomatoes. 

Took some photos.  Was not sure what exactly I was seeing sometimes. Was it a soccer field or a bull fighting ring? The train had started to go up and I started to count the tunnels  Old farmhouses, rivers, farms and fields. Valencia? Balencia? Old train sidings with old buildings. Villaon Brales.  twin towers. Wind mills generating electricity. Very man of La Mancha.

Villada with its graveyard. We did not stop at the small town in the middle of the fields. Where are the farmers? I do not see little houses in the farms. Do they all live in towns and go out to their fields? I went to the bar car for some water and chips.  Maureen is sleeping. Twenty tunnels so far.

Towns with gardens out back and cows- brown cows and Holsteins. Leon comes and goes and we are really starting to go up now. La Bobla . Hills and mountains. 

I stop counting tunnels after  75. Short ones and long ones. There must have been over a hundred tunnels by the end of the trip. We are very high now and I try to get a photo in-between the tunnels. 

The Cantabrian Mountains are beautiful. Rugged and steep with little roads switch backing up the sides to little farmhouses. Horses and cattle on the steep slopes where there is grass growing. but it is mostly rugged rock. 

We start to go down. We pass a power station? Coal? There had been something about the coal miners going on strike.

We reached Ovieda at 350 pm. A very nice gentleman on the train told us how to get to the ALSA bus station. He told us twice. Once on the train and once outside the train station when we thought we might take a cab. ALSA was about one block away. We walked. 

I had printed out our timetable for the buses and good thing too as the ticket seller did not speak any english. She was very helpful though. She let us know that we could catch an earlier bus than the one I thought we would have to. It left at 530. But somehow we thought she meant that it was leaving at 430 and so when the bus pulled in at 430, we tried to get on and the bus driver thought we were two crazy old lady tourists . Then I thought my watch was wrong by an hour but in the end it all worked out. 

I bought some post cards and a lovely polka dot scarf for 5 Euros. while we waited we had iced teas.
The bus did leave at 530 and it was the express but it did stop at quite a few places so I can only imagine what the regular run would be like. The bus was nice a regular bus but had no washrooms on it.
Luarca is the most lovely fishing village I have ever seen. Of course it being the only fishing village I have ever been in might give one reason to question the validity of the prior statement. 

But it really was a beautiful little town.  It is located at the bottom of a very steep ravine with a river running trough it right on the coast. the roads coming into Luarca are steep and switch-backed.
We found and checked into our lovely 2 michelin star hotel and our lovely room with a view.  The lady at the front counter was very helpful and so, after semi settling in to the room, we set off armed with the knowledge that there was a museum down the wharf that held the world's largest giant squid (dead I am sure) and an abundance of good restaurants. 

We wandered around finding the museum but it had just closed. The jetty was grand and the harbour was full of colurful boats of many sizes.  The Restaurant that we chose to eat at had very good food but the waiter was a little rude. In his defence, if there can be one for a rather rude waiter, there was a soccer game on and so I think that he would really rather have just been watching the game and not have been bothered with those pesky english tourists. We ended up being joined by Glenn from England who works with the BBC on the Olympics and live feed with computers and stuff. He was on holidays before the madness all began. Who could blame him.  He was going surfing as it seems the coast of Spain is famous for its surfing? 

After dinner we, as in Maureen and I,  had a nice walk to the beach, through the town and then back to the hotel. The helpful lady at the counter asked if we would mind writing her a note  why we were doing the camino and gave us directions to the camino in this town. It is just up the street and around the corner. Very easy to find.  I paid for our stay and she stamped our credentials. Our first stamps it was very exciting.
Sleep came easy after a very busy day of sitting and enjoying the scenery of Spain.

monday - a hike to the big rock

Wednesday 13 jun - Parades and Post Offices

Woke up with light and swifts making a lot of noise outside the window. I slept on the sofa bed and Maureen was upstairs in the loft. I heard her moving but she didn’t get up. I had no idea what time it was, as I couldn’t find my watch. I got up dressed and left searching out a coffee/tea shop. I went to the angel plaza and found the Cinco Jotos (the 5 J’s) which is right across the street from our Villa Rosa restaurant that we are going to tonight. Found out it was around 830 which means that I slept for about 71/2 hours. and I got up around 8 Astounding.  I had a tea and fresh squeezed orange juice and wrote in my journal.

Went back to the apartment around 930 and Maureen was still sleeping. I tried to be quiet opening a bag of peanuts but I guess I was too noisy as the first words out of her mouth were “even with earplugs that is too loud”. Good Morning Maureen.

After bout an hour and a half, around 11, we headed down to the cathedral to get our credentials for the camino walk. on the way down there was a parade of horses and riders in fancy military uniforms and carriages  with footman going in the same direction as us. I took off following it trying to get some great shots.

I knew that Maureen could find me as I was wearing my bright pink hat. The parade went down the hill and turned into the palace right across from the cathedral.. I believe that they do this a few times a day for the tourists. There was an Honour guard and a band with lots of people watching down at the palace. It was impressive. The guard was well drilled. It was very warm out already at noon and I felt for those guys standing to attention out on the parade square.

Maureen and I then went into the cathedral Santo Maria Real de la Alemudena Museum. it is very different from most of the churches that we had been in before. Very bright colours with modern designs. We were not supposed to take photos in some of the areas where they had religious paraphernalia and memorabilia on display. Some really beautiful things with lots of gold, silver, gems silks and tapestries. A collection of clothing that at first we thought might be for dolls but that we discovered they used to dress the statues of the baby Jesus “el Nino” on different days.

The tour took us up onto the roof of the cathedral. Nice views of Madrid. Lots of church steeples and pretty red roofs. 

After the tour of the outside we got to go inside and the colours were again very bright on the ceilings and domes. I lit candles (.20E) at every shrine and said Hail Mary’s for Bill. They had a lot of saints there but not St Teresa of Avilla. The Gentleman told me she was in Avilla.

After the cathedral we went in search of the Bishops office to get our Credential.  One guard told us to come back a three but we kept looking and we did find his office with a lady coming out of it  who told us to wait until we were invited in. I stood in the doorway and looked into an office with a desk and a little old man.

 He said something in Spanish and then motioned for us to come in. He spoke no english. Our terrible Spanish and pointing to maps that he gave us finally produced two credentials one for each of us. We were registered to walk the camino, Maybe not on the dates that we were actually going to be walking but we were registered. We paid our 7 Euros and said gracias and left the poor man to his lunch.

We caught the red bus back up the hill and got off at the plaza del Sol. We headed up to find the post office which you wouldn't think would be difficult but turned into quite and adventure for us.  We asked the police who told us it was just up the street at the court inglaze. so we headed up the street and could not find the cort inglaze. we asked a man who told us to take the first right going back down the hill  and we would see the the court inglees and it was inside. the court ingles was a store.

 OK we went down the street and to the right and walked a bit .... there it was, this store as big as the bay called El Corte Ingles. We entered. It was like being transported back to north america only it was brighter and busier and full of lovely products that we could buy. We decided to look at a few things before trying to find the post office.  Baby clothes for Maureen's Rose's  twins and a dress for my Mary. When we first brought some things up the  counter the saleslady asked where we were from and told us to go upstairs and register to get a 10% discount coupon.

Heck yea. Up we went. The store has this great policy that tourists register, give thier passport info, and they get a coupon for 10% off of all their purchases for a day. Maureen did not have her passport on her so we used mine. We got some little souvenirs for us both. Maureen bought some green shoes and a scarf and a  green shawl. I bought a dress for Mary, so cute with eyelet and blue ribbon. Then Maureen changed her mind about the green shoes and tried to return them but could not return them as the language barrier was too great and we had had that discount so she ended up keeping them.
We then tried to find the post office. Each person we asked got us closer. First direction - in the basement - down we go. Second direction - down the hall to the elevator and go down to the basement- OK over and down we go. Third direction - go down the hall and out the door- alright we must be getting close now. Fourth direction -  cross the lane in the underground parking lot and through the door. ?????? We found it. who puts a post office in the underground parking lot of a major retail outlet. Spain. We stood in line and discussed this strange spanish custom, also what size box would we need to ship a few things home so that we don't have to carry everything we bought on the Camino. I bought some stamps and a 2.5 kilo box off we went to the apartment which actually wasn't that far away. It was now 3 in the afternoon. I pulled my things out that I wanted to ship back and put them in the box. I was done by 330 Maureen took a little longer to find what she wanted to send back.

We had a bite to eat for a late lunch.
Maureen wanted to carry the parcel down to the Prado instead of coming back for it so at 6 we   caught the red bus and headed down to get in for free. Maureen got her picture, Murillos' St John the Baptist and Jesus when they were toddlers, printed like a painting that she could take home and frame there. I wandered around and enjoyed Rico who had a painting of the Alhambra and very nice it was too. A few more souvenirs and we were done.
We left the Prado at around 715 and caught the red bus up the hill to the closest stop we could get to the post office. Found our way back down to the parking garage with almost no trouble and mailed it away $E29.70. We were out of there by 8pm.

There were a lot of people out in the Plaza del Sol which we had to cross to get to our restaurant reservation for 730 (we were late). Some kind of activity, probably soccer related but we did not have time to stop  to find out as we were about an hour late for our reservation. Villa Rosa was very good to us even though we were an hour late and brought us to our table and we ordered and the show started. We ate while the show was going on. It was a big place and not full. we wondered if the second show was fuller as the Spanish love to do things late. The show was very good, 2 ladies and 1 man dancing, one man singing and one guitar player. the food was great too. the show started at 830 and was over by 930 so got to bed earlier than the night before. Read a little of my book Wicked and slept all night long.