After a number of very noisy nights in Sanxenxo marina, Cangas was a welcome relief. We had a late night in the club bar then retired to bed. Thursday's forecast was cloud and rain in the afternoon but the day started bright and had warmed up nicely by lunchtime (er...when we got up!).
We had a wander round the town and a couple of hours cleaning and polishing the boat before the rain hit us. The town is small and compact - about the size of South Queensferry. There are no "big" shops but plenty of butchers, bakers and the odd supermercado, all very close to the marina. As it is only 15 minutes on the ferry over to Vigo, people must rely on the shops over there. There is an old part of the town with many examples of the old houses used by the fishermen.
Above is the church in the centre of the old part of town.
....and the best photo I could get of the inside! Not quite as big and ornate as the cathedral in Santiago but still quite stunning. In one corner on the outside of the church walls was this piece of ...."rock"!
Unfortunately there was no plaque next to it so we have no idea of its significance - other than it looked rather old.
There were also some nice gardens and tree-lined pavements along with a large variety of street cafes to stop at.
....and yes, they do have pigeons here in Spain.
By five O'clock the rain arrived. First it was a fine mist accompanied by very low clouds descending over the hills and cutting visibility across the Ria to Vigo (2 miles away). Then it increased to vertical stair-rod type rain for the rest of the night. We had planned to spend the night looking at some bars in town but made do instead with the club again - as it was about 30 yards from the boat! As I write this blog (Thursday) it is bright sunshine again. The rain was yet the tail end of another front that you poor lot are getting in the UK. At least we get the 20C+ weather between them. I can see though why this part of Spain is quite green. Overall the climate is probably like the south coast of England in a reasonable summer but it sounds like the UK is not getting one of those this year. I've not mentioned it since Ireland but we keep getting these reminders of why we are heading south for the winter. The weather forecasts are showing at least another 5 degrees more heat by the time we get to Lisbon. We are still doing very well on the sun-tan.
In the previous blog entry, I had talked a bit about the variety of wine that you can get served in the bars here, making the "cheapest round in the world contest" a bit difficult to judge. The local wines are Ribero (red or white) and Albarino (white). Both are very cheap and taste very nice. The alternative is 157 varieties of Rioja which we will all know well. What we were not prepared for was the way some of the wines are served. Ice cold red wine is a new one on Pam. Our translation skills are getting quite proficient but not good enough to work out what that was. Also last week in Combarro, Pam got the following when asking for a local Ribero.
We had seen others drinking out of these white bowls before - we were always puzzled why people were drinking their finger bowl water! Fair sized coupa de vino though which I think was less than 2 Euros. Pam's first reaction was - how do I pick it up?
Anyway, that's all for today. Hope office life is not too much of a drag for you over there. Tomorrow is Friday and we are off to Vigo for the day to have a look round.
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