I always look forward to a rest day while walking, and perhaps in this case I had too many expectations. It’s not that some parts of the day weren’t great—it’s just that it wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for. And probably my disappointment played a part in us being grumpy with each other throughout the day.
We started the day with a simple Spanish breakfast—toast for me, toast with cheese for Nedjo and excellent café con leche. Then we gathered our very stinky clothes and headed to the laundromat that was, very luckily, only two blocks away.
The laundry took a little longer than expected and then we couldn’t find a place that seemed like what we wanted for lunch. Eventually we ducked in to a bakery to get out of the rain and settled for a tuna empanada—which was fine but not the large, rest day lunch we usually sought out. The we walked up to the fortress which gave us incredible views, but perhaps made for more walking – and especially hills – than would have been good on a rest day.
Nedjo also wanted to see about getting gaiters to try to protect his boots from getting so wet, so at the end of the day we had a further long walk out to a mall and yet another Decathalon. But on the bright side, on our way back from that outing we stopped for a delightful drink. We found an outdoor table under an awning on a busy street and so had a great people watching spot and yet were dry while the skies opened up.
Pizza by the slice and excellent gelato, both from the little place next to our hotel, rounded out our food for the day. The gelato really was good and that would have to suffice as the pinnacle of our rest day—stellar gelato.