picture perfect

Hospital – Ribadiso
40km

Drizzly day though lots more farmland and hamlets with guard dogs for cows, guard dogs for chickens (which impressed me) and even a guard dog sitting in a field presiding over a horse. I wondered if this level of livestock security was entirely necessary, was chicken rustling big in Galicia? Generally these dogs displayed nothing more than total indifference at my passing but I was curious as to how quickly they might jump to their feet and rip my arm off if I crossed some invisible boundary into their yard/field/veg patch etc….but I didn’t try it.
Passed Melide, which was famous for its ‘pulpo’ (octopus) which featured highly in Gallician cuisine. Every town had at least one ‘pulperia’ in this region, they had become more common than bakeries. I watched at the open window counter as the chef took the large bright purple cooked octopus and snipped up its tentacles onto a plate with a large pair of scissors. I wasn’t tempted. Stopped today at idyllic albergue on the banks on the archetypal babbling brook with little stone arched bridge through which horses splashed. The albergue was made up of converted farm buildings with bright blue stable doors into every building. I had always thought these doors attractive but I knew they were not for me after the first hour of trying to open and close them without smacking the top half into my face or trapping my fingers between the swinging sections. If I ever do build my house with my bare hands I will not be installing stable doors. I sat on the bank of the stream with a hot chocolate in my new cup as the weekend walkers continued on into the next town and the last warmth of the sun was gone.