No Horsing Around, Today is the Day of a Thousand Woodland Photos!

The morning starts rainy, but i am able to get some photos of the church in Lourenza before I head out onto the road...

Stunning stone work...

They had a display of these masks inside the church, which reminded me a bit of the carnival masks in New Orleans...

My thoughts on the day... since yesterday was much longer than expected, I'm going to push through to Abadin today, and that will save me an extra day in travel... The weather actually ends up being much better than anticipated, and it turns out to be a beautiful day for a walk... brisk but dry...

So, today I am going to travel to about 1800 to 1900 feet uphill, and while I have already had plenty of days with quality photos of woodland trails, today is off the charts for stunning photos...

I could have easily taken 3x as many pics, but a guy just has to get where he needs to get sometimes!

So beautiful!

I was stopping every minute or so to take a photo at one point...

I cant help myself...

And then I thought the photos just weren't doing justice, so I took video...

I will be on the top of those looking down soon enough...

For all the sheep I see, not much on the menus...

Yeah, I'm about to hoof that one...

Michelle, from Idaho, and I try to outdo each other with how many photos of these amazing paths we can take...

Me, taking a photo of her, taking a close up photo of the photo I am taking... I think?

It really was never ending...

Even the greenery has greenery growing on it!

Cabbages and corn... and mountains...

I really like this photo... I love how you can tell this has been stationary for a long time as the wheels are buried in the mud!

Another

Woodland

Trail

Photo

Just

For

You!

Another old abandoned village...

Kind of eerie when you pass through them...

Another mountainside village...

No excuses for not going to church in Spain, even in the mountains!

Lumber is big business in the area....

I enter Mondonedo just as a market is setting up... this vendor had garlic, sausage and bags of walnuts... I buy a small bag of churritos, churros dipped in dark and white chocolate, my first of the trip ..

And then i am lucky to find this in the central plaza, next to the cathedral. Interestingly, due to continuing invasions by the Normans and Vikings, the cathedral was built at the lowest point in the valley, in the middle of town, rather than its original location, the highest point in the area, which would have been much closer to the sea...

It got even better when the band started playing...

Cathedral of Mondenedo...

A side street, and the clock tower of the cathedral...

Spanish cows are lazy...

Spanish horses, not so much...

This starts to approach the highest point of the day, somewhere around 1600 feet...

Getting high, completely legally!

I was happy to see that we had paved or hard packed roads almost the entire day... normally when there are big climbs, you can expect lots of rocks...

So much green for mid October!

Here, I'm trying to branch out and not just take pictures of the road...

Wrought iron cross from the top of a church

A local cemetery...

No bull, those are some serious horns!

I hear lots of water in the mountains...

Up around 1800 feet here...

Another lovely path...

Water features everywhere... and what is that old building? There were a bunch of old structures in the area...

And then right at the peak of about 1900 feet, I catch this...

I covered a lot of ground today!

My stay tonight is in Abadin, and I will dine at my hostel, in the company of Bridget and Jason, from Austin, Texas, again... We all start with the fish soup, which is almost as good as the first two I had...

My main course is 3 pieces of lightly battered hake fish, with some boiled potatoes..

For dessert, I choose a local cheese which resembles Gouda, served with a fig reduction... Bottles of white wine and baskets of bread are included for 14 euros...

Distance walked today- 27 kms...

TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELLED SO FAR-

772 KMS