San Carlos Santiago de Compostela

The other two tours in Madeira and Lanzzarrotte we planned well in advance, but the trip to Santiago de Compostela was a last minute decision based on the recommendation of the two couples who we had the pleasure of dining with on the cruise. I'm glad we decided to go. It was quite a long drive, but well worth the effort. We walked around the oldest part of the town where the ...

... wildest part was at teh end of Mass when a 6 ft incensor is lowered from high above the altar. It is set on fire and incense thrown on it, then 5 or 6 men start yanking on pulleys that make that baby swing way up into the air. I tried to get some photos of it, but without flash most are a bit "shakey", but you'll get the idea. The next was the tour of the palace and the cathedral roof. Mass was going on down stairs and the<br>organ ...

... the city which contains all the old buildings and churches is pedestrianised and huddles round the grand cathedral. The Cathedral is vast and very ornate. The guide books say that is best seen in the rain so that all the lichens and mosses are highlighted. The weather duly obliged!<br><br>The car has decided to have a sick day and has gone to the Ford dealer to recuperate! We collect it tonight and move on to Portugal in the morning.

Liz decided she wanted to hike some of the camino, but Maureen and I were pretty tired from the past few days of traveling, so after Liz left, we went back to sleep for a while. By the time we left the hostel, it was around 1 in the afternoon, so we walked to Plaza Quintana to find a crepe place Maureen had read about. We sat at an outdoor table at this restaurant and ordered, including cafe con leche and cava, because hey, why not. After a salad, we of course needed ...

... the hostel only actually had 1, so they had to put the other group of 3 in a different hostel around the corner. I ended up going to the other place with Liz and a girl named Maureen. We decided to settle in and relax for a while to recover from the fairly rigorous touring pace of the past few days. That night, Liz, Maureen and I couldn't get a hold of the others, so we just went to a random cafe/bar we found on the street. It was about 8:45 when we got there, much to ...

... those who do wish to read it.<br><br>I arrived at the airport of Santiago de Compostela (SdC) at Friday late afternoon (July 31st), where my two Bruce Buddies were waiting for me; they&#8217;d come by car from the Netherlands. The next day we decided to check out the venue, because we had actually no idea where it was. We found it and a security guy told me people had been camping out since the day before. That fact, combined with the dark clouds over ...

Well, we had given ourselves about 12 days to complete the final 120 Km of the Camino de Santiago, and it only took us 8 days. Each day got a little bit easier and we got a little bit faster, but we found that after about 15 kilometers, we were looking for a place to spend the night. Except for 2 somewhat wet days, it was absolutely gorgeous. Even the rainy days were fairly pretty. After all the natural beauty of the Camino itself, coming into the big ...

... around Carnes, where the big film festival is held in the summer. After leaving Nice I met a guy on the train from Chicago who was also going to Barcelona, so we ended up travelling together for over a week. So we saw alot of Gaudis buildings in Barcelona, enjoyed palella, which is an amazing spanish seafood dish. I was also able to meet up an old aquaintance in Barcelona, which was kind of cool. Then we headed off to ...

... it is where the beach is, and Amy decided to skip a day of school to show me around!!! We then walk around A Coruna and it is beautiful. Amy informs me that she has never been here in the light or sober, so she doesn't really know where to go. PERRFECT. Her instincts are perfect and she gets us to the beach. The beach is beautiful and we take off our shoes and walk around. We go out to the rocks in the middle of the water and talk for a couple ...

... this will be our fall-back position. We SMS'd to Jerry that it was a nice day, and we would walk. Half a km down the road, DP found that she had left her hat, so walked back while MP took out needle and thread to fix the chest strap on the pack, having fixed the waist strap at midnight. The weather was pleasant enough, and we had a good walk, both on the road, and along the track which ran mostly along beside the road. Passed a couple of hamlets, and had a coke at a ...