Gabardito revisited

Just a few flowers from yesterday's walk.

A pretty dianthus

broad-leaved helleborine

Probably Pyrenean iris. Very pretty!

Atapuerca

On the way home from Galicia, just out of Burgos, we stopped at Atapuerca, where in the 1970s they started excavating an enormous prehistoric site; basically a 900,000 year-old dump, full of the bones of people and animals. There is so much material in this vast excavation site, apparently, that they dig for one-and-a-half months every year, and the rest of the time is spent examining the findings.

Group beginning the visit.

One of the excavation sites.

Trip to Galicia

Last week we drove to the north-western corner of Spain; Galicia. It's a long way from Jaca! On the first day we stopped mid-afternoon in León, a bit more than half-way. León cathedral has got the finest stained-glass in the land; it's a pretty, luminous Gothic building. At the other end of town is the "Hospital" of St Mark- originally a place for pilgrims to stay; they can still lodge there now, but it's a luxury Parador.

Here's a nice statue outside the hospital- a tired pilgrim with his sandals off!

 The following day we stopped in Lugo, Galicia. It's got a Roman wall around the old city; very impressive!

Galicia is Green Spain; lush and fertile. There are trees and allotments everywhere. Coming from hard, sparsely populated Aragón, we found it rather crowded, but beautiful.

The Rías Baixas, estuaries where people work diligently at low tide to collect shellfish; what backbreaking work!

Santiago de Compostela-the big cathedral which is the goal of all the many pilgrims. Being Green Spain, it poured with rain! It looks like this on the outside, but inside it's elegant Romanesque.

Food Octopus is good and very tender, all kinds of seafood, and pimientos de Padrón- little green peppers which are mostly mild, but every now and then there's a hot one.

Served with local wine Albariño. Delicious!