Galicia

First two corrections from my last post:

1. Many of the trees and plants are the same, but this place doesn´t look like any part of Canada I know. But that is only because of the big rolling hills always in the distance. Otherwise, yes, it has a similar look to it.
2. I have not entered into another province by crossing from Castilla y León into Galicia. Galicia is not a province but is a nation (for lack of a better word), which itself has four provinces. The best correlation I can think of is the UK, as the United Kingdom is the name of the country which is comprised of several nations within it (e.g. England & Scotland), which are then divided into counties (e.g. Cornwall) which correspond to the provinces here.

Galicia

Galicia is in the northwest corner of Spain and is the first place that the clouds find land after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, it is very green here and it rains a lot. It has a history of Celtic settlers living here and the local music does in fact include bagpipes. The country is reminiscent of other Celtic lands such as the west coast of Ireland, with small fields and pastures where grazing cattles, sheep and pigs can find a home. There are other similarities,such as that the countryside is poor and many of the young men leave here to find work elsewhere. According to the Brierly guidebook, there is a strong Catholic faith which is overlaid by elements of an earthy spirituality.


Day 29: Ruitelán --> Fonfría (21.7 km)...

The day´s walk today was not as bad as it looked in the guidebooks. There was a long climb at the start, but it wasn´t too bad. When you reach the top, you arrive in the village of O Cebreiro which is like a time warp with small round, stone huts topped by thatched roofs. Most of these are housing tourist shops but I guess the locals need to make money wherever they can.

Typical dwelling in O Cebreiro (obviously not taken by me as there is no snow here at the moment):

Here in Fonfría the albergue is quite large (about 75 beds all in one room) but it is clean and the people are friendly. This is great, because there is nothing else here of interest, just a few houses, the albergue and a tiny bar. I walked to the edge of town and got back in about 5 minutes. :-)