Santiago de Compostela

We’re off to Galo de Barcelos, the home of the famous Portuguese rooster! We only came here for the Rooster selfie, but wow what a beautiful little town. Such history and legend weeping from the walls. Even in this misty grey afternoon the history and richness of this town are in escapable.

In Copenhagen the local council weeds the city streets with a flamethrower, here a lady is all dressed up in council clothes, down on her hands and knees picking the weeds from between the street cobblestones, that’s a community that cares.

In a lazy arse kind of way we’re on our own pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, here in Galo de Barcelos we find a shell tile on the street to guide us. A short wander, a gander, a coffee and a local tart and we’re ready to head for España!

Somehow the GPS is telling us it’ll take nearly 3 hours to travel just over 170kms, I wasn’t planning on that so I gun it down the freeway. We cross the border into Spain and realise the reason we’re 2.5 hours from target is we’re crossing a dateline, boom 1 hr of driving saved!

So we’ve got a hotel in the pedestrian part of town, but we have a caravan of luggage to rival Khan. Car and luggage stowed, we’re into our hotel and ready to explore the home of St James. Before we even get in you can’t ignore how wonderful this town is, the pedestrian precinct is more on par with Vienna than Sienna with narrow alleys snaking all about the place. Brian Sewell’s “The Naked Pilgrim” introduced me to this place and the Camino de Santiago that brings people here. The church itself is magnificent covered in gleaming gold and cherubs and the statue of St James at its centre, we queue to pass him behind and touch his shoulder. Imagine walking for months to reach this end, or better yet the millions of Christians that have done it over the past 1200 years. The afternoon drizzle has us enjoy the cathedral a little longer than I had planned.

Tapas is calling me, and I mean specifically me, my amigos are not interested in any of the plates I’ve ordered, more for me! I have a family rule about submersing ourselves in foreign things when away, for the other three it’s more honoured in the breach than the observance, but we spend countless hours debating. Well today the girls completely flipped and agreed with me wholeheartedly – it turns out ZARA is Spanish! The girls are off shopping whilst Fid and I enjoy a café. They return dejected, the shops here are less than impressive, it’s at the end of ancient pilgrimage route, and also a university town, how much shopping can pilgrims and students support?

That’s us, we’re all set to return to our third floor, un-airconditioned, no fridge, no remote for the telly, no lounge, no elevator room and all bitch on Gab for choosing it. She responds as she should by ordering a large vodka, good night!

July 2nd, 2018Read more