Back to Spain: Santiago de Compostela Day 1 (3 Sep 2013)

This post should also be a short one as we spent half the day on the bus from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. Our tour group was happy to discover that we first had the morning in Porto to explore it a little more, having only had a half day the day before, as we’d all fallen a little in love with it.

By this time though we both had the lurgy so decided to take the morning easily. That meant, unfortunately, not climbing the Clerigos Church Tower which was nice and handy at the end of our street. It was the tallest structure in Portugal when it was completed in 1763. Ships used it as a guide when coming into Porto’s river port. It’s still the main feature of the city’s skyline, as you’ll see in the slideshow. You can climb its 255 steps for an aerial view of the city, and many of you probably know how much Len loves aerial views. However, that’s not what we did! Instead we decided to visit the Sè Do Porto (Porto Cathedral), described in our trip notes as Oporto‘s (aka Porto) “austere fortress-like cathedral”. One of the reasons we decided to visit it was that it provided another notch on our Prince Henry the Navigator belt. We first met Henry in Lagos, but the Porto Cathedral is apparently where he was baptised. It’s also where King John I married English Princess Philippa of Lancaster in the 14th century. The building originated in the 12th century, though has been changed over time. We particularly enjoyed the Gothic cloisters with their extensive blue and white tile murals from the 18th century. There’s something about cloisters that appeals to us (a bit like temple and shrine gardens in Japan). Somehow they conjure up ghosts of past seminarians, or monks or whatever, walking around them as they discuss the affairs of their world … or, perhaps, what’s for dinner!

We liked Porto and its narrow, up and down rambling streets … but after a brief look at the shops and a coffee in the plaza accompanied by the last “real” Portuguese tart, it was time to meet the rest of the tour group for our trip to Santiago de Compostela. It was a long, slow bus ride for what the iPad map app says is a pretty quick car trip, but we arrived close to schedule just after 6 pm.

Picnic and port, with a little gin thrown in

And here was where our port plan went into action. Cyra had suggested in Porto that we buy a bottle of the two summer-drink suitable ports – the white and the rose – and have a picnic on the terrace of our Santiago hotel. Funnily enough, no-one thought that was a bad idea, so the port was bought – generously donated by tour group member and sole Canadian Kim. Upon arrival in Santiago, Cyra shopped for bread, sheep and goat’s cheese, olives, artichokes, peppers and meats (including of course jamon), and wine, beer, tonic and mineral water, for which we shared the cost. A whopping €4 each. Our picnic started at 8.30 pm … good Spanish summer picnic time!  It was a gorgeous way to spend the evening … particularly when Alicia produced her iPod and mini-speaker… but more was to come. Cyra lured about half the group, including Sue, to a gin bar in the old town which was just 5 mins or so walk away. We all loved our gin and tonics, prepared by the bartender from a little portable table he brought out into the square, dribbling the gin into our fish-bowl glasses down what looked like a steel swizzle stick. Half the group, including Sue, had a gin called Bloom garnished with lemon and juniper berries, while the other half had Martin Miller gin garnished with lime. It was tempting to have a second – great company, lovely evening, beautiful gin, but sense prevailed and we wandered back to the hotel well satisfied with our evening and our introduction to Santiago de Compostela.

Three-words

SUE: Warmth, Bliss, Croaky
LEN: Slow, Bus, Cough

and the stills…

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