Santiago – Post Camino, Day 26

Kind of a slow start today. Slept in, did laundry and then shopped all morning. Quite a dull day really compared to what I’ve become accustomed to. To tell you the truth, I’d rather be walking.  So leaving tomorrow for Paris is just great for me. I get most of my fun in the day seeing a newly arrived pilgrim walk by.

While out strolling around this afternoon I bumped into Jurgen from Germany. It was nice to sit with him and talk Camino. It’s my new language. I will have to be careful when I go home not to bore everyone to death with my new vocabulary.  Anyway Jurgen goes back home tomorrow.

I thought one last picture was in order so we went to the cathedral and Jurgen asked a nun who was passing by to take a picture. She readily agreed and came and stood beside me, smiling widely across at a surprised Jurgen.  It was a pricess moment.  

 Tonight I will have one final dinner with Claudia, Uli and Mattie and I’m looking forward to being with them again. They were always such great company. The Portuguese Camino is wrapping up with everyone soon to go their seperate ways. Perhaps next year or another year our paths will cross once more. I can hope so, it is the way.

Santiago – Post Camino, Day 25

It was the perfect day to hop on a bus and go on a tour to Finisterre. It turned out that a fellow pilgrim Irena from Ireland was going on the same trip. Bus left at 9:30 and didn’t return until 6:30 so it was a full day of sightseeing. First stop was Muxia where we had close to an hour to walk around and look out at the ocean and admire the views.  

 Next it was on to Finisterre, once considered the end of the world – a most beautiful place and the final destination for a handful of pilgrims.  

 

It was then time for lunch in a lovely fishing village on the seashore. And lastly a trip to one of 3 waterfalls in continent Europe that can boast falling directly into the ocean.  Usually they’ll fall into a river or a lake but not into the ocean.  On the rocks you can see where the ocean used to rise prior to the dam being built.

The last stop for the day was in a little town to view the largest corn house in all of Spain.  It was once or still is owned by the church. They would receive a portion of the villagers crops and would need a very large storage shed for storing and drying. Truly the largest I’ve seen.  They can be seen everywhere in Portugal and Spain and some are very elegant but most are not used for their original purposes. Our guide said some are used nowadays for drying laundry and storing items like bikes. Well at least they’re still being used.

 The final part of the trip back to Santiago found half the bus snoozing – Irena and I included.

It was a great day if seeing and learning about the landscape. Now it was time for dinner and tonight it was eastern food at a restaurant that Irena  had previously visited. It was very good healthy food (a bit pricey) – salad, chicken kabob, and spicy but delicious rice. Not your usual Spanish meal but nice for a change.