Weather: high cloud, 15º C

Mileage: 390 Km; Total 1,495 kms

Today we drove from Santiago de Compostelo to Oviedo via Lugo.

The purpose of stopping in Lugo was to visit the Roman wall around the old part of the city which date from the 3rd century. This wall is just over 2 kms in length, goes all the way around the old city, is entirely walkable and is one of the best preserved in the world. We drove in through one of the ten gates, got a very accessible car park and proceeded to climb up one of the staircases.

Half way round we called into St Mary’s Cathedral, as one does. Not one of the more spectacular cathedrals, it was ok considering it was built in 13th century.

Susan, one of our friends from our Turkish tour who is also receiving the links to this blog, should be pleased to know that we managed to get all the way around the wall without having to get our shoes polished!

The walls were “twinned” with the Great Wall of China at a ceremony in 2007.

A cup of coffee, a pastry and a visit to the aseos and back on the highway to Oviedo. This highway was very new and had many viaducts on it. Each one had been given a name and had its length displayed. The longest one today was 1103 meters (see picture of one included).

We were very surprised by the number of trucks we saw today. Part of this might have been due to us avoiding toll roads, which the trucks may also do.

Billy also tried to take us off the motorway for some reason even though we had “ordered” him to take the fastest route. We were having none of this and ignored him. He got upset telling us to turn around (yeah right!) but eventually he relented and got on with the job at hand. During the trip we also crossed over an unusually artistic bridge (see picture) and saw many, many wind turbines up in the hills. The countryside has also changed quite a bit with more villages along the way and less broom. Also got our first sighting of the northern coast line; the Bay of Biscay.

Arriving in Oviedo was fine. We found the hotel ok but could not stop outside it. We went around the block then quickly dropped Anne off to check in and sort out parking with the hotel. Quickly picking her up on the next circuit we parked the car, dropped our bags off and went for a stroll and dinner.
Although there is not much to see in Oviedo we checked in on the San Salvador Cathedral on our way to finding some food. Quite interesting in that it is a mixture of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture.

We then found what seemed to be a food street and as it was only 7pm could not order dinner as such so had a plate of tomato, toasted goats cheese, anchovies and some onion jam. May not sound good but was lovely. Followed this up with corn cakes, duck liver and onion jam which also went down well. Had a few glasses of Rioja wine to help it down. The amount of English spoken in the restaurant was zero – not one word. Anne’s Spanish vocabulary is improving in leaps and bounds.