On Saturday we left the beautiful province of Asturias to enter Galicia. Asturias –apple capital of Spain, as you will recall — has a stunning coastline and abundant hilly and even mountainous terrain. Naturally, it has an indigenous language (Asturiana), foods and customs. We have been surprised, however, at the extent to which fields of ripening maize adjoin cow pastures almost to the top of the shoreline cliffs.

Ed has been very curious as to how the maize is harvested, so imagine our pleasure when we encountered an active harvesting operation on our last day in the province! In case you are wondering, it turns out that the entire stalks, ripened ears and all, are cut, ground and stored as animal feed.

Leaving Asturias, in which we have walked for 15 days, not only means a nostalgic goodbye, but a somewhat harrowing walk over a long and high highway bridge over the estuary of the River Eo to the beautiful port town of Ribadeo. (The walkway is only wide enough for one person, and the outer rail is only at waist height.)

On the other side, however, we have been rewarded with gorgeous views of the salmon-rich estuary, sea birds and hills and mountains stretching into the distance. Since dawn happens around 8:25 am, we witnessed the sun coming up over the bridge to set the water sparkling.

Only nine more days to Santiago.