Visit of our lady of Fatima

Lynnes sprained foot gave us a rethink and we decided to take it easy in Cangas for another month.
It would give us valuable maintenance time and also let Lynne recover completely before we continued our voyage. The Algarve was by this time looking less attractive anyway and Lynne was not too upset with an extended stay in Cangas!

We have both fallen in love with this pleasant little town, the Pidgeon above kept us company at Bambuenos cafe on our way back from the beach. when we got back to the marina a couple of lovely traditional boats were entering the fishing harbour.

It is constantly interesting to see how local craft reflect local conditions in their design.

the three vessels were obviously taking people for a sail in the bay.

Thursday dawned and we were up early not because it was polling day in the U.K. as we had voted several days earlier by post. It was because posters around town had been advertising the arrival of the Virgin of Fatima. There is a statue which tours and is known as the International Pilgrim of Fatima. We did not think this statue was that one having the distinct impression that it was the Original Peregrina statue from the shrine of Fatima or the Chapel of the Apparitions.

The statue was due to arrive at 11 oclock and slightly late we managed to catch up just as it entered the church. It was much smaller than we were expecting but was obviously very highly revered.

It was accompanied by some traditional gallician pipers and a surprising number of people followed it into church.

we joined the queue and took up position at the rear of the church as a brief service of welcome was performed.

The original statue seems to have a presence out of proportion to its small size. later we returned to the church, which was open all day for people to visit to find a small group of people praying.

The Statue was set to one side of the alter and was lit so as to stand out from the massive gilded altarpiece and surrounding decoration.

Again I was struck by the small size of the statue.
Cangas church of course has its own Lady of Fatima, she is hiding in a corner and is actually a bigger and I think better statue. As usual the whole church is full of fresh cut flowers.

Later there was to be a torchlight procession with the statue through the old town, we decided to make an effort to see it.