take the long way home*

I'm writing this in Santander (the Spanish port, not the bank).

Luke has flown home to Edinburgh. He starts work again at 8.30 tomorrow morning and then is travelling to Nottingham and back on Sunday to collect his new canine companion. Such is the fast paced life of a young man :-)

Sarah, Chris and I are taking a more leisurely way home. We were at the station in Santiago early this morning. There was a problem with the trains and we had to travel to Ourense and change for Segovia; there was some talk of a rail replacement bus and a lot of confusion over platforms but here we are at Segovia in the photo above in plenty of time for the connection to Santander.

I have seen a lot of Spain today! 7 hours of travel south from green lands to brown and then back north to green again. Some beautiful scenery and places I would love to visit in the future. It reminded me of Inter Rail adventures in my youth..

Tonight we had possibly the nicest meal of our whole trip with vegetables and olives and a lovely glass of Rioja.

Tomorrow we will travel at an even more leisurely pace on the Galicia ferry to Portsmouth.

*on my pilgrimage, I have intentionally not read a book, watched a video or listened to music or podcasts. I still don't have a book to read (soon!!) but I'm back on Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/track/46TLlKsmMNRQc53ukyFCtM?si=r9NUpIGpTM6IdNZCI7kXZA&utm_source=copy-link