Ourense rest day

Hello, everyone.  As mentioned in the post title, we're taking a rest day in Ourense.  This is a very old city, dating back to the Roman Era. At least.

There are hot springs in the area, but the things we are more interested in are churches and museums. Today we visited the Cathedral of St. Martin. This St. Martin is the Roman soldier of Tours. He's famously depicted as sharing his warm cloak with a poor beggar in art. The Cathedral treasures a small relic of his, a bit of bone. I felt privileged to see it, as I had understood that during the French Revolution the anti religious revolutionaries in Tours had burned all of the relics of St. Martin they found in their church. Apparently this little bit had already been given away before those folks entered the picture. 

Statue of St. Martin aiding the beggar. We can see from the clothes that the artist thought of St. Martin as his own contemporary. That often happens with sacred art.

We also walked over two of the bridges on the river Miño. (Once each direction) 

This picture was taken from the old Roman Bridge. It looks to me like a suspension bridge. (The cables remind me of the Mississippi River bridge at Alton, Illinois.) 

The swooping structure is a stepped walking surface. As y'all can see in the picture,  the river was very calm and held beautiful reflections. 

The Roman bridge, taken from the Millenial Bridge.

Temperatures in this area are running cool, with dawn hitting in the low single digits C (40 ish F?) and afternoon getting up around 22 C (70ish F?) with clear, sunny skies.

We start out walking with about four layers of clothes, and gloves, then peel off as it becomes possible. 

First WiFi in days

Hello, everyone.  We've been staying at public albergues for a few days and haven't had internet available. Thus the interruption in posting.

Today we have arrived at Campobecerros, a small village in the mountains of Galicia, where the Pension Casa Nuñez has wifi.

This long lake was below our ridge top road.

The village.

Arrived at Lubian

Hello, everyone. Today was a short day, made a tiny bit shorter because the local folks in Requejo recommended that pilgrims keep to the road at least for the first half. The ground has been very wet and muddy lately and the natural trails are infested with swampy areas. We did exactly that for most of today's walk.

We ascended about 360 meters up along the left edge of a sleepy highway, went through a tunnel that has a sidewalk and electric lights--400 meters--and had our breakfast at the bar of Hotel Padornelo. Then we continued down the other side, passed through the pretty village of Aciberos, and followed an ancient (medieval? Roman?) road into Lubian. There were lovely streams, a little cream colored narcissus flower that I have never seen before, violets--a beautiful walk.

We found a very cute room at Casa Cesar: sun shining in the dormer window, a very fancy shower with many controls, and lovely decor.