Life is not just a holiday. Even
travelling people have stress and worries. Anita’s mother was taken to a
hospital in Poland after a small heart attack so there has been endless
discussion between Anita, her daughters and one sister. The daughters
especially have made a number of three hour long bus journeys to spend time at
“Babka’s” bedside. She is old and frail and care for the future is the big
debate as no-one lives close. It is most likely that we will have to give up
some of our early 2019 plans to take our turn in caring for her.
Ribadeo is a port at the East end
of coastal Galicia where the River Eo separates Asturias from Galicia. The
whole area is beautiful.
I have read
much about this town in the book Two Girls, Two Catamarans by James Wharram. As
a young man he had researched extensively Polynesian voyaging and double canoes
of the Pacific Islanders. Inspired by that and a couple of European pioneers in
sailing with two hulls he built a small flat bottomed catamaran in England with
the purpose of sailing it across the Atlantic to prove that such a voyage was
possible. He met two German girls, Ruth and Jutta and together they made this
adventure in 1955 / 56 when even sailing yachts were mostly a rarity for the rich. The book tells the
hardships and adventures. They took 12 days to sail from Falmouth, England
across the Bay of Biscay in October (storms are common) and being unable to
sail far enough west to reach the west coast ending up wintering in Ribadeo.
Sailing was very different then. There was no gps navigation. They steered by
hand with an unproven boat. It was a courageous adventure. Now 90 years old,
Jim has introduced thousands of ordinary people to build and sail his designs,
influenced greatly by those ancient designs. His partner Hanneke Boon has
co-designed many Wharram catamarans and her artistic skills have made it easy
for self-builders to create wonderful boats to sail the oceans as “sea people”.
Link to buy the book - https://www.wharram.com/site/shop/books/two-girls-two-catamarans
It rained heavily after we arrived
on Saturday evening but on Sunday we enjoyed walking out to the river mouth and
around the town in the November sun. The town was buzzing with activity with
many people enjoying cafes, shops and open spaces.
On Monday we drove inland to Lugo.
Alfonso had recommended Lugo to us as the walled city in Spain with the most
complete walls. We arrived just before dark with headlights not working and
spent two hours in a café charging the computer battery, also seeking a place
to park for the night. We continued under street lighting with sidelights to a
parking place by the river, which in daylight revealed a great choice of
location just by the restored Ponte Vella.
We walked past more modern
buildings up the hill until finally we found the city walls. Inside was not
disappointing, and we walked atop much of the walls too.
We treated ourselves
to a Menu del Dia lunch in a small café / restaurant, the first of this trip.
We left allowing time to reach our
next destination, Santiago de Compostela, before dark.
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