Christmas with the AWW : a tale of two halves

Part 1 : The Walk

A delightfully sunny December morning and 13 walkers arrived at the Taberna da Manel at Montes de Cima , otherwise know as The Honey Cafe, or even Honey and cafe....

and suitably refereshed with caffeine, assembled for the starter photo:

L to R : Martin, Russell, Linda, Sue M, Steve, Karen, Ross, Isabel, Frank, Geoff, John, Ken. Keen observers will notice the absence of Sue H, late again, powdering her nose, or something.

The advice for this new walk was not to wear shorts, to which Sue M adhered, but not many of the others. The path was overgrown in a number of places, so a few scratched legs :

Before a series of ups and downs, mainly up:

In the distance we espied some domes and wondered what they were for:

having reached them later and read the description, not too sure we were much the wiser:

The place seemed like a higher class of hippy commune, complete with outside shower:

The local names not really helping either:

It ain't half hot mum!

There had been a lot of dam building since we were hereabouts last, complete with some cyprus saplings as firebreaks, which seemed a bit odd :

And so, back to The Honey Cafe where Frank sat in splendid isolation, still suffering from a contageous lurgi:

but what transformations...from both the lady and the gent walkers:

    

Walk stats : just over 2 hours, 8km and c 250m ascents.

Part 2 : The Lunch

Arriving at the Solar de Farelo, we were joined by eight others including Myriam, complete with boot :  cycling John having decided to Walk not Lunch, as opposed to the eight who wanted to Lunch not Walk. Sue H and Maria compared feet styles:

Suffice it to say that the food was excellent, the prawns and the Javali casserole earning particular mentions :

Having said he didn't want any fuss, our esteemed leader  woops, co-ordinator, David said a few words, to which Ken no doubt ably replied : what was said , I'm afraid, I have no idea as the table behind insisted on talking at the top of their voices! Anyway , the co-ordinating baton passes to me after Christmas, so I couldn't resist adding that I hoped to be able to do it as well.

Those with happy memories of this part of the world, could see out of the verandah window the wooden structure  where we had lunch in the pouring rain on a previous Linda & Russell walk:

A Happy Christmas and New Year to you all, many thanks for the companionship and great walks, see you all in the New Year.

Geoff