We are in the coolest room in an old mill, with walls of stone and round wooden beams in the ceiling. The sound of the mill race is constant. The birds woke us at 8, although it was again raining. They say it will be better weather soon and I do think I see blue sky out the skylights. The only trouble with staying in these gorgeous out-of-the-way places is they are miles (or should I say kilometers) from anywhere. It took us about 3 hours to get here yesterday from Santiago, a trip that should have taken only an hour. In fairness, it did take an hour to find our way out of Santiago. Road signs are not what we would like in Spain--maybe no one wants to find Lugo?

The food here is almost as good as Perfeuto Maria, although a little more expensive. There is a delightful young woman who speaks more English than anyone else we have met here. The restaurant is in the miller's first, more modest, home. There is a faucet in the dining room bringing water into a pool where they keep wine cold and fill pitchers to drink. Amelia was once again eating salad and eggs, but they were very good. And we had two awesome desserts: ice cream with a sort of fig and honey jam and a chocolate cake with molten center. I was feeling despondent that no American restaurants seem to be as good as the average European place. Salad with a perfect dressing, a little piquant. No leaves browning around the edges. How they get fresh ingredients every day miles from anywhere and still make a profit is a mystery to me.

I am all out of clean pants, so am running around Spain naked. Well, okay, just stinky. Apparently laundromats are not something to expect. Besides, who wants to do laundry on a day in Spain anyway?

Yesterday we left Perfeuto Maria and drove to Santiago de Compostela. It took a while to find where we wanted to go, but we did find a big parking lot fairly close to the cathedral. There were thousands of middle-aged and older people, mostly women in polyester pantsuits. They must come by the busload from all over Spain. Also saw a group of about 50 4-year-olds. I was glad that wasn't my job. The cathedral is very dramatic, all full of gilt and doll-looking figures. Some of it was fascinating, but mainly not my thing (or Amelia's) and full of people. We wandered around the plazas some. More figurines and churches around every corner, most not even mentioned in our guidebooks, there are so many. Some nice-looking shops, not just tacky touristy. We finally found the crepe restaurant we were looking for. You have to go in the right building and upstairs to find it, but it was tasty. Everywhere we are given more food than we can eat and hate to waste it.