Santiago de Compostela

I left Verín on Saturday morning at around 09:00 in the sunshine, having delayed a little longer than I intended, to chat with a couple of lads on bikes ( a Kawasaki Voyager and  some kind of Honda cruiser) from Wales. Like me they had been pushed south by the weather a week or so earlier but were now keen to explore Galicia.

I headed for Vigo and having had a hard time choosing between a cross country route and the autovia, I finally chose the latter and am glad I did, for Google Street view showed the cross country route to run between tall trees for a lot of the way so I wouldn’t have seen a great deal, whereas the autovia revealed some magnificent views of the countryside. From Ourense, the road was as perfect a road as it’s possible for a road to be I think. The suface was imaaculate, the several viaducts that crossed lovely valleys gleamed in the sun and as I got closer to Vigo, I caught tantalising glimpses of the sea.

I had hoped to get close to the sea at Vigo but after spending what seemed like ages getting rather lost in endless docks and port areas, I gave up and crossed the harbour on a bridge to the other side where I could see a lot more – blue water, yachts, ships and a great many low platforms in the bay; talking to a woman in a coffee shop, she said these were for the purpose of growing mussels and that I really ought to eat mussels here because they were the best in the world.

Bateas for growing mussels

The harbour areas around Vigo, Pontevedra a little further north, and several other areas on the Galician coast where sea inlets are located, reminded me of Vancouver and the various islets around Vancouver island.

I arrived in Santiago de Compostela shortly after 2pm - the lady in the Garmin having led me the wrong way up several one-way streets including one immediately in front of the police HQ (where plenty of policeman watched me go past without batting an eyelid). 

I checked into my hotel - not a Parador this time but nonetheless in an old, converted building (a former convent). However, whilst a comfortable enough place, it lacked the charm of the Paradors, was more expensive and the wifi turned out to be very slow once people were actually using it. Still,  I had not come for the wifi and was soon rubbernecking with thousands of others ( a mix of pilgrims and tourists from every corner of the globe) in the squares and streets of Santiago.

My first port of call was the cathedral which gave me quite a shock. Like the rest of the historic centre, it is romanesque rather than Gothic and made of a coarse granite on which lichen and plants abound. When I first saw it,  the sky had clouded over and the cathedral had a dark forbidding aspect and reminded me of a scene from a computer game where you find yourself in an an abandoned city being taken over by nature and needing to find the next clue, or a way out.

Taken in the sun!

The building is so large, that even from the large plaza in front, I could get it all in with my little camera. Fortunately, I later visited a museum that had a model of the building - it is really enormous...

I am rather ashamed to admit that I didn't go inside the cathedral. I have done rather a lot of cathedral visiting in the last few days including some Romanesque stuff in Salamanca (old cathedral) and I much prefer the gothic style.

Santiago was full of people, many of whom were pilgrims who had arrived in one way or another, having travled the whole or a part of the various caminos to the city. There is a pilgrim office where people go with their credentials to receive the compostela - which thanks to wikipedia is as follows:-

(On arrival at the Cathedral in Santiago, pilgrims take their credencial or Pilgrim Record, duly stamped along the way, to the nearby Pilgrim Office and a Compostela certificate (still written in Latin, and confirming the completion of the pilgrimage) is generally issued. Walkers and pilgrims on horseback must have completed at least the last 100km and cyclists the last 200 km. This need not necessarily be in one stretch, though if you do break off, you should obtain one sello on the day you stop, and another from the same place when you start again - this is to accomodate Spanish pilgrims who do the last section over two weekends. The pilgrim office no longer require that pilgrims carry their own luggage. You will be asked your motivation: those who do not count 'spiritual' as part of their reason for making the pilgrimage can obtain another document, a certificado, to attest to their having completed it.) 

Outside the Pilgrim office

I asked one girl to show me her record. The stamps are given by the various albergues where she stopped for the night

Getting there...

Santiago's historic centre is about equally composed of relatively small, private and commercial buildings made of granite and lining narrow streets plus large and imposing buildings many of them churches, also of granite and most sporting "gardens" like the cathedral.

The door of the Santiago Parador which is located on one side of the "cathedral plaza" - properly called the Praza do Obradoiro < Like Chinese, Gallegos get their 'r's and 'l's mixed up  -:) >

I found a street that seemed to be full of fish and seafood restaurants (unsurprising, given the huge numbers of fishing boats I had seen earlier in the day) and was attracted by the various live offerings

Some poor crab gave its all for me for my dinner.

The next day (Sunday) another Spanish friend I had made through the internet and her husband came to pick me up for a tour of various coastal areas west of Santiago. Mercedes and Francisco are both native gallegos and it was super to be shown around by such knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides. The weather was being very kind and the rain that has plagued northern Spain stayed away and we were treated to blue skies and sun, albeit with a very strong wind.

I had a wonderful day seeing the very beautiful coast and several very pretty towns and villages along the way. The area is very hilly/mountainous and one had great views of dozens of white sand beaches and "rías" (sea inlets) made all the more beautiful by the blue water.

A first century BC Celtic settlement (a Castro) 

Hórreo (agranary) 

An extremely long one - enough for the parish!

Stone floors defeat the rats.

A cemetery with niches

Where women used to scrub their men's shirts..

Francisco and Mercedes

Salpicón with crab  and other goodies

A great local wine

Clams, razor clams

The fishermen's boats

In the evening, I was extremely fortunate to be invited to accompany Mercedes and Franscisco to a party given by Mercedes' brother. It was to celebrate the Fiesta de San Juan (a popular festival in Galicia that celebrates the summer solstice with fires - to give more power to the sun). We had a great fire and plenty of lovely barbecued food, thanks to Mercedes family's efforts). Drinks were not in short supply either.

Thanks to Mercedes' brother, a talented musician and a friend of the family who played the violin and   a young scotsman called Alan, who sang and played the guitar very well (and was married to Sofia, a local Spanish girl), we had a great time, with a mix of Beatles and Spanish songs.

I think my Spanish got steadily worse during the day as my language muscles tired and although a few drinks seemed to help ;-)  I am sure that it must have been a great effort on the part of my hosts to provide me with such friendly hospitality, and for which I am extremely grateful.