Walked: 0km (119.03km) | 0h0m (25h19m)
Followed: 0km|22km (20m)
Those who are following the Brian story from yesterday will be pleased to know that I sent an email last night and got a reply this morning – including a confirmatory photo – so we are back in contact after 48 years.
Before I get on to today’s story I’d like to thank Dominic for his email, pointing that he couldn’t comment on the blog. A technical issue meant commenting got switched off. That’s now been fixed so anyone should be able to comment now if you wish to.
This is the view we woke up to this morning from our room in the Hotel Pinzón – more on Pinzón later. We look out on the fort which now incorporates a 4-star hotel. We were tempted to stay there, but decided €200 a night was out of our price range. Now we get to admire it for free. At night it is lit up, and very atmospheric.
We hoped to eat there tonight but its two restaurants were fully booked.
So we did the next best thing and walked around the fort, twice. Around the outside is a scenic path beside the sea. We then realised you could walk around inside the battlements too so we did that as well.
Half way round the battlement walk we came across a large patio cafe (part of the hotel) – no booking required – so we got our lunch there overlooking the bay. Zoom in to see the tiny fishing boats.
On the way to the fort we went aboard a replica of La Pinta one of the three ships that sailed West in 1492 and “discovered” what is now Puerto Rico and Hispañola (now Haiti and The Dominican Republic).
It was very cramped – and hard to imagine a team of 23-27 people living aboard for months – let alone finding their way across the Atlantic and back. It was captained by Martin Alonzo Pinzón – the namesake for our hotel, and a famous explorer and seaman that no-one hears of. Because it was Columbus who left the written record and took the glory. We visited the museum this afternoon to find out more. Whilst Columbus was the overall “in- charge”, the Pinzón brothers provided financial backing, navigation expertise and captained the other two ships. Furthermore, La Pinta was the first to see the New World and the first to return to Spain, here in Baiona. Unfortunately, he died just a few days later. There is also a theory that Martin Pinzón sailed to the New World in 1488, with the navigator Jean Cousin, four years before Columbus. This would explain Pinzón’s confidence in guiding Columbus on the voyage we all know about in 1492. See Wikipedia for more detail.
As we’re both missing our usual high veg/high yoghurt diet, we ended the day with an indoor picnic meal which Jane russled up from a supermarket. Eaten at the window of our hotel room – just as scenic as the booked-up posh place over the bay, much better value, fewer unidentified sea creatures and the waitress wasn’t bad looking either!
Tomorrow will be an early start. We need to do two stages in one day to stick to our itinerary, so rather than attempt 35km walking, we are getting the slow bus to Vigo that follows the Camino quite closely and then we will walk from Vigo to Redondela. See you on the other side.
