Celtic Invasion of Castro de Baroña (Blog), Wild Mountain Thyme (Video) (Patreon)

12 June continued

I went back to the hotel to check in. I laid down to take a nap to get me into proper Spanish form. 

I confess it is really weird for me to take a 3 PM nap. I love naps. I’ll take them frequently at home. But I usually limit them to about 20 minutes so it doesn’t mess up with how I feel.

I set an alarm for an hour. I woke up before the alarm. And as anticipated I felt terrible. I felt like I was done for the day.

It wasn’t one of those deep deep sleeps that really mess you up. It just sort of made me feel… I don’t know. Nauseous.

So I vegged on the phone. Then when I realized it was 530 I thought maybe I should get out and walk around.

I headed down different streets in Santiago de Compostela. I spent much of the time shopping for gifts. 

So far I really love the shops here. Yes there are some generic religious gifts for the people going on the Camino. In general, it felt like they had a better assortment of pretties. 

Tho I’m not certain that it is not just me who has changed and how I shop for gifts. 

There were a lot of great shops. In addition to clothing, jewelry, and the usual gift type stuff. There were a lot of great food stuff. My mouth was watering from everything from cheese to gelato to FroYo to salamis. I don’t think that even does it justice there is a lot of amazing looking food. 

The people were out in the streets. They were eating many of these items. Though there’s quite a few sitting at bars, restaurants, and taparias. 

At one point, I decided I wanted to grab a drink. But by the time I was ready for that it was 30 minutes before dinner with the early group. So I made my way back to the hotel instead to drop off a present. 

I met up with five other invaders for dinner at Mercado la Graciana. In typical Spanish style, it took forever to even get a waiter. But the food was worth the wait. Tender pulpo, paella, some sort of flavorful pulled pork, spaghetti alla vongole. Just delicious in a family style atmosphere. 

13 June

Steve and I woke at about 8:30 to begin our day. We walked to toward old town of Santiago de Compostela to coffee and a pastry for breakfast. Then we headed to Enterprise to pick up a van and car to carry our invaders for the day. 

It was an hour drive to our first destination, Castro de Baroña.

The Castro was an old Celtic settlement from about 100 BC. It still sits on a rocky Atlantic peninsula, accessible only by a narrow strip of sand.  It was surrounded by stone walls. Inside, twenty circular stone dwellings housed a community that farmed, raised livestock, and practiced metalworking and textile production. At the highest point sits the croa, a rocky structure some researchers believe was a sacred sanctuary.

Getting to the Castro was fairly easy. The trailhead is located at O Castro, a restaurant at the top of the hill. There are several ways to get to the Castro. If you’re not sure, footed, then you don’t wanna go directly from the restaurant. Instead, use one of the trailhead to the left or right of the restaurant.

The Castro was a nice walk around. The circular stone dwelling remains or need to see. Steve said they reminded him of Skellig Michael, except they were no longer beehive dwellings. 

I walked and climbed all over. I recorded “Wild Mountain Thyme.” It was pretty warm behind some rocks. But then you walk around the corner and the wind breeze cooled you down.

I walked back up and we had lunch at the restaurant. Mine was an empanada with scallops. It was fantastic.

We also bought several bottles of water because we were all super thirsty by the end of it. 

Our next stop was Dolmen de Axietos. It was located in beautiful field. I was feeling pretty tired after lunch, so I lay down in the grass and try to nap, rather unsuccessfully. 

Our final stopped for the evening was our vacation rental. It’s a beautiful building. I sing a few songs before making dinner with Maia. We had baked chicken, zucchini, with mint, steamed broccoli, baked fish of unknown origin lol plus a salad and tomatoes and cheese. And of course that’s not forget a few bottles of wine to wrap things up. It was a lovely day.