Iberian Adventure Day 6

Sadly we had to leave Portugal today - it's been so relaxing.  The reason for this adventure is the wedding of an old friend of mine in Laxe in north west Spain.  We booked the Portugal AirBNB by mistake so we were heading to our next AirBNB and with a hint of nervousness...

Our route took us along the 'Autopista del Atlantico' which doesn't flow quite as well when squeezed into 'Love Shack' but didn't stop MrRoly and I trying.  Our route took us right past Santiago de Compostella - a famous (we now know) pilgrimage, err, destination?  We decided to stop there for lunch.

Walking from the car park at the bottom of the hill to the cathedral at the top of the hill in scorching temperatures meant we felt an affinity with the pilgrims and we ate at the first cafe in the square that had room in the shade for all 6 of us!!  Anyway, MrRoly chanced his health with a dish of suspicious paella, Smallest went for lasagne and the best of us went for the safer looking (but boring) cheese baguette.  After the ferry, I wasn't prepared to risk some dodgy rice food poisoning...

The cathedral is beautiful inside (and cool) but the children refused to go in so loitered outside with their Dad - they did nip in to find the most garish fridge magnet in the shop though - I feel they are mocking my collection.

Our flying visit over we hit the road again and arrived in Laxe at our Airbnb apartment without any difficulty.  This time the host was in Japan so we had to meet with his parents who speak only Spanish and French. We opted to try French as I speak it better than Spanish (but not that well) as there was problem with the apartment.  

We still aren't really sure what the problem was but basically, they own 2 apartments next door to each other. The one advertised has a balcony and dormer windows, the other one is all sloping ceilings and no balcony. We think they were saying we couldn't have the 'nice' apartment unless we left on Sunday - the day of the wedding - as it had a cot and a highchair that were needed by a family arriving on Sunday.  We said we had to have somewhere to stay Sunday night so they put us in the 'not so nice' apartment.  No matter - it had everything we needed and we couldn't really be bothered to argue as it was clearly causing them some distress!

We contacted the family of the groom and arranged to meet up with them at their aparthotel after we'd eaten.  We wandered into the 'town' - very reminiscent of an English sea side resort and much much cooler than Portugal thanks to a lovely sea breeze.  As we stood outside the hotel dithering to find phone numbers, I hear my name being called - it was the aunt of my friend who recognised me from his brothers' weddings!

So began a lovely evening catching up with everyone in the bar and discovering that they pour their G&Ts in this part of Spain in much the same way as they do in Mallorca...

The extras show the view from my bedroom window and the balcony I didn't have