DAY SIX PARADOR BIAONA AND SURROUNDING AREA (Exploring with D & J)

Monday morning and the sun shines on the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean at the harbor of Biaona! 0930 meet up time to join forces with Dave and Joyce for breakfast to plan out the potential activities for the day. We decided to head down to the Oficina de Tourismo to get some ideas. We all got in David’s car and drove down the hill and turned in to the Yacht Club!

After we got thrown out of there we tried the tourist office, which was closed. We moseyed down the coast, intending to find the Lighthouse or La Guarda. We saw a sign for a tourist office, took a quick right turn and headed down to……..a road which was blocked by the policia! You cannot go over there they said there is a parade! Undeterred we park the car on a piece of dirt close to the ocean and walk along the promenade to………the tourist office……..which is closed! Lots of people milling around dressed to the nines. Black suits, white shirts, very fancy clothes, high, high heels, little girls in communion dresses, little boys in white suits, silk and lace everywhere!

What the heck is going on? Turns out it is the last day of fiesta for La Virgen del Mar. There will be a Mass at 12.30 and a parade soon after with religious floats on the shoulders of the faithful and a military band! We have hit the jackpot! This is going to be fun. David starts talking to a couple waiting for the action and it turns out she, Marianna, knows the Batzan and San Sebastian and he, Antonio just wants to show us a good time! They were a delightful couple. They insisted we accompany them for a drink after the parade! I kept on saying “where the heck are we?” We are going for drinks and eventually lunch and we are not really sure where are! It was hysterical.

The singing of the choir was heavenly, mass was suitably solemn and the parade was lively! What fun! Our new best friends, Marianna and Antonio led us to their favorite bar/ restaurant and we drank wine swapped stories and ate a wonderful meal. The town is Oia! Small, friendly and very welcoming. We were there for hours and it was only with great difficulty that we extricated ourselves and continued on. Good job David was driving as we consumed many bottles of wonderful wine with our new friends. David doesn’t drink, WhooHoo!

We continued on to La Guarda on the recommendation of our new buddies and wound our way up a hill to the Citania de Sta Tegra. Well! Another surprise in store for us, a prehistoric settlement. The remains of circular dwellings which housed 3000 people. Fascinating stuff. Up top you could see for miles, across to Portugal, up the River Minho which separates Spain and Portugal and out to the Atlantic Ocean. Just stunning. There was a tourist office up there too and you guessed it, closed! A few tacky touristy concessions completed the scene. We could have climbed the steps to explore the upper buildings but by this time we were just about done! We had only travelled 30 k from Baiona but we had been gone all day!