A Paisaxe (outra vez)

Two things: I went on another hiking field trip with my school today, and "paisaxe" in galego takes the feminine article, unlike "el paisaje" in castellano.

This trip took a more difficult route than the last one, so even though it was shorter and we finished sooner I was much more tired by the end. I'm also less fit than I'm used to, and that probably had something to do with it.

We couldn't have picked a better day though. Sunny and windy and absolutely gorgeous.

View from the starting point

About 40 students decided to go, accompanied by the PE teacher (Manolo), history teacher/computer guru (Carricoba), math teacher (Laura) and myself, plus a mysterious woman called Inez who I think is also a teacher, but I'm not sure what subject. Our destination was some remains left from the castro culture, less well preserved than the castro at viladonga, but still pretty neat.

"Gallol Trail
'The Castle' castro, 1mi"

The castro was more of a lookout or fort than a settlement, and sat perched on top of a hill near the meeting point of two rivers. Inez explained to us that the castro people had similar structures on hilltops throughout the area, which (as far as I understood) they used to warn villages of invaders through the use of signal fires.

The lookout point at the end of the trail

The castro ruins (the rocks on top of the hill)

From there we took the carretera (road) back to Vilardiaz, the village where the bus had dropped us off about 5km away.

road

village

Some of the kids had a little assignment from their biology class to make note of the different plants they saw, so I picked up a few new vocabulary words. My favorite is "uz" (pronounced "ooth") which is Galician for a scot's broom kind of plant. I forgot to take a photo and what the Spanish word was. Here are some pictures of plants.

Fenos e arbustos e arbores e musgos...

On the way back to Fonsagrada, we stopped at another little village called O Trobo (or was it O Tromo?) to see the church and a natural spring called "o fonte de marques" or something similar. The fountain of the marques. There was some story behind it, but I didn't catch what it was. I was too busy taking pictures. (I am a tourist.)

Group photo

O fonte

There were some animal attractions too--goats and dogs and chickens which were just so picturesque in the spring sunshine that I had to take pictures. Of course, some of the teachers had to tease me for this, "Oh the american girl, never seen a chicken before, jajaja" 

PICTURESQUE, DAMMIT.

Also I got sunburnt.


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And now, because I don't want to make a whole nother post, here are my travel plans for semana santa:

Vigo, Islas Cies, Oporto.

I had been thinking of doing more of Portugal, maybe going all the way to Lisbon, but the busses were complicated and Lisbon is farther away than I thought. (further south than Madrid) That and various people have told me that I need to see the Islas Cies (a national park off the atlantic coast) so that is what I will do.

E agora vou a fazer um repaso do meu portugues.