Hola......Adventures in Spain!: Santiago de Compostela

Day Seventeen

Date: April 2013

Place: Santiago de Compostela to Salamanca

Weather: Sunny – maximum 20 degrees

Accommodation: Hotel Catalonia Salamanca

We gave ourselves a ‘free’ morning before we headed off to Finisterre.

I wandered the streets and as it was before 10am the shops were closed so I returned to the cathedral to see a few more things I wanted to follow up on. I sat for a while listening to the lovely baritone voice of the priest during a mass and then went to the Portico de Gloria where pilgrims have placed their hands for centuries however the column is no longer able to be touched. I could now see the well defined splayed hand in the marble at the foot of the statue of St James.

Can you see the hand print on the column?

The magnificent façade of the cathedral.

St James....note shell on the slouch hat and his staff. Many pilgrims carry a staff and wear a shell on their backpacks.

As I was mooching around I ran into the Trees so we enjoyed hot chocolate and hot churros (Desley’s first) at the same café we had dined the previous evening. It was very yummy but very rich!

Our next part of the camino was to head to Finisterre (end of the earth) on the Costa da Morte (Coast of Death) at midday. Sounds like a fun place to visit doesn't it? For many pilgrims this is the final stage of the walk. The pilgrims may symbolically burn their clothing and visit the ‘old boot’ which sits on top of a rock looking out to sea. The boot is made of bronze and is life-size. We noticed many burnt patches in the rocks where clothing had been burnt.

A great sight if you have walked all of The Way!

A special moment for this pilgrim.

Part-time Pilgrims!

More Part-time Pilgrims!

A lovely touch!

There is also the last marker: 0.00kms and I noticed ‘Gus’ had made it. Good old Gus! He had written his name on stones and placed them on top of markers (maybe 10kms apart) for the whole way…..and here he was! Good on him. I’m sure he sat and gazed at the ocean like the pilgrim we saw today – overcome with emotion and in awe of such a wonderful achievement.

Good old Gus!

We bundled ourselves in the car from the very breezy rocky outcrops and settled in for a 6 hour drive to Salamanca. But we had one more quick diversion: Desley wanted to collect a shell from the beach so we made a quick dash just up the road to try and find la concha – the shell symbolic of St James. We were lucky as there were very few of this sort on this lovely beach.

We left the region of Galicia and entered Castilla y Leon and La Rioja. What a difference – and of course we know why Galicia is SO green! This region is much flatter, much more vastly agricultural and far fewer trees. We had become used to rolling hills of green, small stone-housed villages and babbling streams. This regions is so much drier.

A contrasting landscape.

We passed many wind farms, small vineyards, high snow topped mountains and much coarser vegetation.

It was time for some late lunch and we made a quick but circuitous detour into Ourense to find something at a garage. I’m sure there are much bigger ones on the way but we loaded up with sandwiches and biscuits and we headed off again.

We finally arrived at Salamanca at 8pm to the lovely old university city. The hotel is right in the centre near the Plaza de Mayor the third largest square in Spain. It is huge and magnificent. We walked under the colonnades deciding where to have dinner. The square was awash with people standing, talking, strolling and dining. We eventually settled on a small tapas bar and ordered many little items from the menu to the amusement of the next table…..we are never sure what we are getting! The bottle of red from this region (Rioja) was fantastic according to the others and my white was great.