Professor Sharon

So where were we?  We’ve been home a little over two weeks and I’ve gotten distracted from posting about our trip for a good portion of that.  We have two bathrooms undergoing major renovation, and who knew it would take so much time to organize, shop and choose parts and pieces, and work with the contractors?  I didn’t – that’s for sure!

So, on this very dreary rainy and bitter cold late autumn day in New England, I’ll tell you again about the delightful trip we took in October to Portugal and Northern Spain with Odysseys Unlimited.

Today we travel from Porto to Santiago de Compostela.  It was supposed to rain again, but as on every day so far on this trip, the worst of the rain manages to hold off until we are indoors.

On the way to our first stop for the day, we crossed a bridge and were able to see the amazing wooden pontoons created in the river to grow the famous local mussels.  All along the coast, from the beginning of our trip, we had seen planted forests of eucalyptus trees.  The purpose for these trees was the making of these pontoons (see this link for an interesting story of this process).  We saw the mussels for sale in the various food markets on our trip, and a couple of times on menus.  We did share a small plate of them at a dinner one evening as they were very expensive!

Eucalyptus pontoons for farming mussels

Our first stop was the lovely town Pontevedra.  It was what we call “Columbus Day” at home (the real date, not the moved it until Monday date that happens to so many of our holidays in the US now), and it was a Sunday.  We had the good fortune to be walking about this lovely town as church was letting out.  Many of the families were dressed with extreme elegance and actually put Americans definition of “Sunday best” to shame: several couples were right out of folk tale books.  Had I been quicker and felt less intrusive about it, I would have asked or tried for a photo.  I really need to try to be “braver” in these situations and just ask.  Good practice for my poor Spanish as well!  But, I didn’t ask, but certainly enjoyed looking at all of the elegant and lovely families.

Church facade

The first of many pilgrims we would see in Spain. Our guide thought that these had walked the way from Toledo or Seville.

First of the many direction signs we would see to guide the pilgrims to Santiago.

Every village had beautiful old drinking fountains.

After a tour of the village with our tour guide, we had lunch on our own and then it was back on the bus. We arrive at our destination of Santiago de Compostela about 5.  I believe we stopped at a rest stop or two, but it wasn’t until the next day we had in the bus that I realized that those stops were worthy of photos as well.

The bus drove right onto the square as the Parador was at right angles to the church and the town hall.  How magnificent.

After checking in, we had a little time to walk about the old town on our own – with the rain again holding off.

Before dinner, the assistant manager gave us a wonderful short tour of the Parador.  Our evening ended with a spectacular dinner — we ate amazing meals on this whole trip — in the Parador’s restaurant which was once it’s horse stables.  I’m going to save Santiago for a post all its own for next time.  This town was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Stay tuned.

The front of our Parador in Santiago