Ride Day 15: Santiago de Compostela to Cangas

We work our way back over to the coast today and with each pedal stroke ride nearer Portugal.  Here's our route:


A bit lumpy but it is nice to be on the sea shore again.

We got an early start (at least in terms of how things work in Spain) -- 8:30.  We had to wake our hosts so that they could unlock the storage room where our bike was.  They were very gracious and wished us a great journey.

The plan was to camp on the coast about 4 km from Cangas.  But the campground costs about 35 Euro for a pitch with power plus WiFi.  A hotel costs about 45 Euro.  It was an easy decision to choose the hotel in Cangas and my slowly resolving heath issues made the decision easier still.

Red grapes

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There are many of these unusual buildings -- I will try to find out what they are

Albarino grape vineyards

It was a gorgeous day with a promise of high temperatures in the afternoon.  This is Albarino wine country and there are quite a few vineyards in the rural parts of the area.  In Pontevedra we decided to stop and get a coffee (we'd had our fill of coffee at "home" in Santiago but needed more!) and stopped at a random cafe that was owned by another Road Angel.  This is what makes these rides fun, the amazing people we meet.  She set us up with cafe con leche, fresh squeezed orange juice and fresh fruit.

Coffee and goodies -- all of this for 3 Euro

In fairly decent time we made it to Cangas (not to be confused with Cangas de Onis, blogged about earlier), which is right on the bay.

The main harbor in Cangas

Another of those goofy buildings

The bike at our hotel.  People are fascinated by our ride and want lots of details.  It is tough when there is no common language, but maps do wonders if you have a good bit of humor and patience.

We hadn't booked a hotel but rode along the bay until we saw one that looked interesting, Hotel Playa.  A room was secured and we were in for the day.  What to do but go out for a Spanish mid-day meal.  We went big.

The appetizer (and egg and potato thing with aioli on toast)

First course: fish pate and head cheese(?) with dill sauce on toast

Second course: amazing tacos

Third course: a paella type of dish but with little noodles instead of rice.  It had tons of fish, shrimp, clams (three types), mussels, squid and octopus.

Dessert.  Yummy fruit of some kind inside a pastry shell

Nobody spoke a word of English and we couldn't figure out what the fruit was

The meal was great but the amount of food was enough for four people.  We were gorged and had to get back to the hotel to relax and get rid of the food coma.

Here are a few photos from our room.  We have a cool little deck that is just above the boardwalk and no more than 20 m from the shore.  It has big windows that open up to let the evening breeze in.  All of this makes it is so easy to justify not camping when this costs only 10 Euro more than a camping pitch.

Our veranda

Your blogger creating today's journal

Sunset from our room

The beach -- the Spanish were all over the beach during the hot day

Our hotel -- our room is first floor in the taller part

Tomorrow we have a fairly long day that includes 2 different ferry rides (if the tidal Gods are with us).  We will for sure be in Portugal tomorrow but we are not sure where we will end up.  There is one ferry crossing that has had to modify its schedule due to unusually low tides, so we will see how it goes.

Until then.