A visit

We had some old friends visit from the States with their 12 year old son.  This is always the perfect excuse to do some siteseeing, although for some reason between my phone and the camera I don´t seem to have many pictures.

Our area is not exactly rich in tourist attractions, but since it was raining off and on for most of their visit, we went to the nearby waterfall.  I don´t know if it´s budget cuts or lack of interest, but the vegetation was so thick a lot of the view was obscured.  Lots of water falling, though.

Then we went to the Monastery at Sobrado dos Monxes, an imposing baroque structure built for the Cistercians.  I blogged about their lake here, when V and I stumbled on it after a wrong turn.

The Cistercians are supposed to be the ¨engineers¨ of the orders, so I was amused by their method of keeping people from coming in directly through the front doors, instead of the preferred route of the tour through the gift shop.  Simple, but effective.

We also spent a day in La Coruña climbing the Torre de Hercules, the oldest functioning lighthouse in Western Europe, ate tapas for lunch in the old city center and swung by a little 16th century castle fortress in Santa Cruz built to fortify defenses of the bay.

All in all, I think it was a good visit and lovely to catch up with them.  And I was happy to have flowers to brighten the guest bedroom.