Day Three – Wednesday 11^th November – A Coruna

Or, as P&O insist on calling it, for some reason, La Coruna. Known as the Crystal City because of the style of balconies on nearly every building, all enclosed in little framed windows.  It’s like looking at a hundred vertical greenhouses, all side by side. Odd, but not unattractive.

Nearest port to Santiago de Compostela, the third most important pilgrimage site for Christians – burial place of the disciple, James (and home to the world’s longest censer). Or, as the P&O put it, “one of the top three” pilgrimage sites, which doesn’t mean quite the same thing! Gorgeously warm, sunny day with blue skies and no breeze whatsoever. Pootled into town with mum on the new buggy creating just a little bit of havoc wherever she went.

We had coffee in a beautiful square in the old town, opposite the rather ornate town hall, stood for the two minutes silence, and then wandered the shops. We ate our lunch at the NH Hotel Atlantico (no idea what chain NH is part of, or what it stands for). They had a buffet laid out – you’ll see the photos when I have a chance to upload them (not happening at 20p a minute- sorry) – you could have fed the five thousand, no problem. Long time since I’ve seen that much food all laid out on a row of tables.

They explained the gluten-free options to me very carefully, and I had steak paella with salad and fresh fruit for dessert. They also had a small portion of orange jelly with chocolate sauce, which was seriously yummy.  And all the fruit juice, wine and soft drinks you could wish for included in the price. I don’t know how many stars that hotel had, but even the loos were stunning. I was very impressed. It had looked so unimpressive from the outside!

In other news, I appear to have done a minor mischief to my right shoulder – probably during yoga yesterday – which means that pulling the buggy is a less than enjoyable experience. But a nice steward carried it back up the gangplank, and a big, strong man at the hotel carried it up and down the steps there for me, so I haven’t had to do nearly as much as I feared. Hopefully said ache will have worn off by the time we get to Gibraltar. Might need a massage tomorrow. I’ll see how it is in the morning. Weather forecast for tomorrow: 20 degrees and sunny. We are still moving about a bit now, though. Hopefully things will calm down once we turn left.

New people on our table at dinner.

Eddie and Mary from Warrington (originally Scotland)

and Cath and Richard from Paignton in Devon, but who used to live in France.

Very nice, all. Eddie and Mary speak very quietly, but we all got along quite well. They all said they would come back tomorrow, which is very flattering for us, because it hasn’t happened yet! Eddie’s steak order was a disaster, and mum’s egg mayonnaise waited a long time for the unification of egg and mayonnaise to occur (they were not delivered together), but other than that, the food orders went quite well, and everyone seemed to enjoy their food. So far, so good.