Addios Santiago deCompostela, Hola Galician countryside

Friday 27 May

Today we picked up our lease car and left Santiago for new ventures ....down the back roads, let the explorations begin.

We have loved the journey to Santiago and we will miss the wonderful Spanish ladies leaning out of windows telling us the way to the camino path  with much rapid  waving of hands and encouragement.  

So for our first day driving on the opposite side of the road we chose a slow ramble down the back roads to a beautiful lakeside spot.  We passed pilgrims walking into Santiago and gave them a holler of 'bon camino' and the thumbs up....we know how this gave us a lift as we were hiking along.

This little brand new beauty is our lease car for the next 90 days. It has great legroom and so far so good. The Navman is superb...it helps with some of the complicated roundabouts and on/off motorways.   Today the countryside looked in full flush of spring...lime green and beautiful.  We had the entire hotel to ourselves, €35 a night with breakfast, a lakeside view from our room with no streetlights, no car sound.....just the sound of birds calling to each other and sounds of fish as they 'plopped'  in and out of the water.  I think we even heard a cuckoo!

The spring blossoms are out and the cows in the field looked very content. 

There was even a 16th century chapel in the grounds that the owner unlocked and let us through, stunning in its simplicity of design and it's still standing.

Tomorrow we head south, aiming for somewhere along the way to Seville, let's see where we end up.

Santiago de Compostela

This is our third time in Santiago and you can really notice the increased volume of pilgrims/peregrinos, the old town was full of pilgrims finishing their camino and congregating in front of the cathedral. We have just a snip of 80k's to finish off,  so once my foot is healed we can zoom along the final stage and walk in to the cathedral👍. 

They say if it doesn't rain you haven't experienced the real Galicia. The old town is great to wander through and you can seek refuge from the rain in the amazing tapa's bars and groovy cafes and of course museums and galleries. ( Note no free water ala NZ cafe style....it's all bottled and you pay for it).

Some of the ancient pilgrim traditions are still observed and behind the door in the pic below pilgrims can queue and receive a free lunch in the kitchens of an old monastery. The monastery is now a rather grand hotel but pilgrims can continue to sit in the kitchen and have a basic pilgrim lunch on the house. 

It was lovely to walk (hop) about the old town and see everyone enjoying the beautiful day, relaxing with their fellow travellers and saying their goodbyes as groups, formed on the trail, part ways and return  home.  

Every place we have visited has had amazing public art and sculpture, it's so lovely to turn a corner and admidst all the hustle and bustle is a stunning piece of art, you literally stop in your tracks....the power of art in the environment.

Our little hotel is close by the cathedral and we are in the top floor (3 flights of stairs) and our room has four sky lights so it is bathed in light. The sun set here last night at 10pm so it's still light until about 10.20pm. Soaking  in the bath last night  I was serenaded by evening birdsong from the birds nesting in the park across the road, ,our  roof height is similar to the tree canopy height.

We have a great view of the cathedral too, see picture below.

 Tomorrow we pick up our lease car so a new adventure will unfold.

Exploration by local bus

Local bus to O Grove

€1.35 for a local bus ticket and 35 minutes  later we are in O Grove, another little fishing village but the difference with O Grove is that it has a small bridge to an island, Illa do Toxa. 

Needs must.....with a sore foot we decided to take one of those little tourist train things that tootles along around the sites, €5 and 40 mins later I was glad we did, my sore  foot wouldn't have coped, ( normally we wouldn't be seen dead doing anything like this and just hike it😊).

Legend goes way back a fisherman left his donkey for dead  on the  island  and when he  came back the donkey was  alive and well, this was attributed to the mineral fed spring.... jump forward 100 years and there is now a spa hotel from the 1900s,(think Belle epoch era) a golf  course and some luxury homes tucked away amidst the pine forests. There are even a couple of token donkey's still on the island. 

Much of the island is parkland and protected and if my foot was better we would have hiked the tracks around the foreshore. There are scallop beds aplenty that are harvested at a certain time of year and there is a church, Igrlesia de la Concha's, made entirely of scallop shells.

The O Grove fishing fleet is still active and in addition to scallops there are many mussel barges and it looks like a lot of octopus pots are set too. 

Bus in the other direction to Combarro

I must say these local buses are fantastic, cheap as chips, go to most places and the drivers are great. The buses are big mercedes type things and it's a very comfy ride, high up seeing all the gardens and beaches.  We spent a couple of hours just wandering around the tiny historic fishing village of Combarro. The town has many 18th century crucero monumento around the village and of course the ancient granary stores mentioned in an earlier post. We found some ancient fishing boats too👍

More pics tomorrow.

Beach time

 A week at the beach 

We are taking a week off at the beach to rest  my foot.  

Sanxenxo is a little seaside town, it has lots of lovely quiet bays,  fishing ports and a marina chocka full of Madridian's  yachts and launches, apparently the place is humming in August as folk from Madrid flee to the coast for their summer break.

(Remember click on the pics to zoom in and see images in better detail)

Each of the little fishing ports have beautiful sculptures of fisherman/ fish sellers and there are a lot of cats that seem to live wild down by the fish processing areas.

The village has cute little shops in the old town around the harbour and lots of shady gardens to rest up on a hot day and just watch the marine activity...with a sangria of course.

Our hotel room has a patio that looks straight out onto the harbour and port entrance.  In true DIY style, home made salmon, olive, anchovie salad on the deck made by Graham after he had been paddle boarding off the beach directly in front of the hotel.   Lovely watching the sail boats return with the sun setting.  

It's still light here until about 10pm at night which takes a bit of getting used to...we thinks it's early still but it's time for bed!

Off track to Sanxenxo

We are diverting off trail for a bit but will pick up where we left off before too long all gong well.

We are on the Galician peninsula and it's stunning, just what we love........little beaches and bays and historic fishing villages and ports.

On the way to Sanxenxo we stopped in at Combarro. This is a historic fishing village where the old houses and fish drying/grain drying stores are built above ground to save space as the village is built on a thin strip of basalt rock between the tide and the hills.       There are a lot of mussel barges in the area and there are still small local fisherman managing to make  a living as small operators, not sure how long this can last but it's great to see.