Feast of St. James
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
1
30
110
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Santiago de Compostela,
Spain
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Coin Wall
. These moronsī goal is to arrive in Santiago to coincide with St James' feast day, the evening of July 24 and day of July 25. There was the usual collection of fireworks, musicians, artists, and street performers. And these people then linger around for days proudly still carrying their walking sticks around an old town that only takes about 10 minutes to traverse.
The town itself, though, was great. Funky old town brimming with people, restaurants and bars, but there was a definite progression to how the evenings went. At around 8:00, people would sit at outside cafes and have beer, wine or coffee, and each drink came with a free tapa - bread with meat or cheese, olives, potato chips, a couple shrimp, or maybe tunafish in a lettuce wrap. Every place offered something a little different. The best part was that the glass of wine, nosh included, would run from 1.20€ to 2.50€ depending upon the quality of the wine ordered, and this enabled me to try a bunch of different types of Spanish wines I would have to buy randomly by the bottle at home, including some really nice Rioja Reservas and Ribera Del Dueros.
Dinner hour was around 10:00 or later and featured a lot of seafood, which worked for me because Í would already have consumed a bunch of more bready stuff with the free tapas
For Mike W.
. The specialties were pulpo (octopus), mussles, clams (including a long thin variety called a razor clam I had never seen before, and barnacles. The octopus was surprisingly good. Iīm not sure I have ever had it cooked before. Looks like what you get at a sushi bar, but is quite tender rather than chewy and seasoned to give it more flavor. I never ordered the barnacles, given that they donīt sound appetizing and I had no idea how to eat them. The mussels were phenomenal - one place offered 15 different sauces for them. On the meat side, I took a chance on a pig ear sandwich, wich was a mistakewich. I have had pigīs ear cooked crispy before in London and it was good. These ear pieces, though, were slimy and fatty on the outside with a hard, cartiligenous center. I had a few bites, and took a photo of what was left. The earliest a few people would trickle into bars was 11:00, and clubs/dicsos didnīt even open until 1:00 a.m. I found one place I liked and ended up there everynight - the Atlantic. What I liked about it was that it was busy, played regular rock music (not Spanish , not house), drew an interesting (slightly younger and hippier) crowd, and an awesome staff. The DJ/bartender had lived in the U.S. for three years, so he spoke good English, and he played songs off the new Drive-By Truckers album for me, along with Cake, Bootleg Dylan shows, and Zappa (again!)
Fountain
. He also introduced me to a lot of people, which was cool of him, so I would know them when I came back the next night.And it was every night. The Santiagans donīt break, at least during the Feast. Every day of the week the restaurants and bars would busy until late, and now just with kids, but their parents generation too, although some places definitely skewed older or younger. I was enjoying the Santiago lifestyle (freaks included) so much, I stayed an extra day (once I realized the only train to Bilbao left before 9:00 a.m. for a 10 hour journey, I decided to go by overnight bus straight to San Sebastian), so that is my extra-day endorsement, but fly there.
As noted, San Sebastian, Spain is next.
