Real Madrid

 

  After our hike along the northwest coast of Spain and after our week in Barcelona, we should have gone home, but for some reason we had tacked on a shapeless week in a small town in Andalusia, after which we had four days left over before our flight back to Boston from Madrid. 

  Madrid is an interesting place, but we had by now absorbed all the interesting things we could and were ready to go home. It didn't help that I had put off looking for a place too long and the hotels in Madrid were crazy expensive and all the Airbnbs seemed to be owned by the same guy. All his reviews were lumped together and you couldn't tell which places were great and which were dungeons.

  After much looking we settled on a place two miles north of the center of tourism. It cost much more than any other place we had stayed, but it had good reviews and the room photos looked good. The hotel appeared to be in a decent neighborhood based on Google street view. 

  "Should we be worried if he's never heard of our hotel?" Teresa wondered as we rode in a cab from the airport. The driver followed his GPS down a narrow street, craning his neck to spot Number 6. There was a sign that said Hotel Las Vegas, but it didn't look like there was a hotel behind the locked front door. With the cab gone, I felt like I was in one those dreams in which I'm trying to get somewhere but can't, and no one around me seems to care. 

    Fortunately the woman in the money transfer office at Number 8 made me understand that I needed to go to Number 12 to register. The door at Number 12 was also locked but the clerk buzzed me in. She didn't speak English, but found my penciled name in her spiral notebook. She gave me a key and a smile. Room 47, my birth year. This has to be good.

  The key was of no use getting into Number 6. Luckily two gentleman also going in indicated I needed to hold the little blue fob on the keychain up to a little 🔵 on the wall next to the door. Open sesame! We hauled our luggage up the steep steps to another locked door with a blue dot. It was reassuring to see that security here was top notch.

  We got in the elevator to the fourth floor. The two gentleman sensibly declined to join us since a sign said in Spanish and English "More than four people and you will be trapped". The elevator opened, rather weirdly I thought, onto a tiny roofless area with a chair and a potted plant. This must be the patio/smoking area. A doorway led to a hallway with our room and one other. Teresa was aghast when I opened the door.  Aesthetics are important to Teresa.

  I must give credit to the photographer who made this very ugly room look like something we would book. It was good that the room's ugliness was confined to such a small space. We had been spoiled by the roominess of our previous accommodations. The apartment in Barcelona had been strange, but this place outdid it. 

  The usual trim that cover pipes and wires had been left off which must have made maintenance a breeze. The window was tiny which was fine because the view was of a courtyard and many other tiny windows, which meant our room was blessedly quiet. The room was also clean. My three criteria for a room are cheap, clean, and quiet, so two out of three wasn't bad. And on the plus side there were excellent reading lamps. Yes, the lighting was good though what the lights revealed was bad.

The soccer pitch in front of No. 6, the Hotel Las Vegas.

  You don't hang around in a room like this. You get out and enjoy the sights of the beautiful capital of Spain.  The rain had other ideas. It rained heavily all the next day.  We walked a mile towards the tourist center which we would surely have had to ourselves had we made it that far. We had our raincoats on and Teresa had a little umbrella. I tried to buy a little umbrella for myself as we passed the many shops, but no luck. The next day I would see little umbrellas abandoned in the gutter.

  I had unwisely worn a pair of moisture absorbing pants and my sneakers were fairly soaked.  After a mile of this I called a halt. "Let's go into that cafe and have a nice cup of tea." Teresa gave the thumbs up. The great thing about Spanish restaurants is that you can sit over your cup of tea or coffee for hours on end. No Spanish restaurant would ever bring your check before you asked for it. That would be insulting. 

  We decided to order a late breakfast. We would share the Breakfast Americano. The huevos revueltos were not revolting eggs, but scrambled. The tortilla was a pancake with no syrup. The bacon was bacon. The fried potatoes were French fried potatoes. When dining in a foreign country, something is always lost in translation.

  We enjoyed the restaurant's Wi-Fi and after a couple of hours we split a late lunch. By three pm the rain had let up a bit and we walked back to our room. It may have been depressing but at least it was warm and dry. Wait a minute! Where's the Wi-Fi? As I headed over to Number 12 to complain, I noticed the Wi-Fi worked on the lower floors. I could not get that fact across to the clerk in reception. She kept pointing to the sign behind her with the password. "Take picture!" was her only English. I would have used the translation app on my phone, but Number 12 had a different password than Number 6. 

  When I told Teresa this she asked me to go down to floor three and download something for her to read. While there, I used the translation app to compose notes in Spanish describing the Wi-Fi problem. "Might as well complain about the mold spots near the ceiling too," Teresa suggested.

  Next morning there was a kindly old man at reception. He carefully read my phone note a couple of times then looked at me. I nodded and pointed at my note. He wrote my concern in his notebook. Then I showed him the note about the mold. He looked confused. I had used the Spanish word for the kind of mold you make jello in. Luckily a woman came in who knew English and supplied the right word. The clerk wrote the word moho in his notebook.

  The next two days were sunny and cool and we spent them down in the tourist district. We even went to the Prado Art Museum, not because we wanted to, but because two of our sons had gone there many years before during their season in Europe and it would have been shameful for us to blow it off.  We kept returning to branches of the restaurant that had sheltered us during the rainy day. The Wi-Fi clicked in automatically and we had their menu in English on our phones.

  When we returned to our room, the Wi-Fi was working and though we didn't expect this, the moho had been removed.  They tried at the Vegas, they really did.  No matter, we were up early Sunday morning, our suitcase wheels clicking over the quiet streets. We had figured out the mystery of the subway card system and spent a few stress-free hours at the airport awaiting our flight. I had my best meal of our entire month in Spain in the airport. Perhaps knowing Number 3 son would be waiting to pick us up at Logan had something to do with it.

Don Quixote was always in hot water because he lacked the sense to stay home.

  

Farewell España

  

  Why travel? To see what’s over the next hill. To see how they do things over there. It becomes an obsession until the traveler either dies or learns to stay home. 

  We wanted to find out what the thousand year old pilgrimage along the northern plains of Spain was all about. Why would people walk 500 miles for a month, sleeping in dormitories, eating rough food all for the reward of a scallop shell? 

  We would learn why they did it by going to Spain, not that we were going to walk with the pilgrims. Their way sounded grim. But we could go to Santiago where the walk ended and maybe do a few days of walking ourselves. 

  We talked to pilgrims in Santiago who had completed the route. They couldn’t put into words what the walk had meant to them but they did have a joyous glow about them. 

  We had found a hike along the Atlantic coast sixty miles west of Santiago. We saw practically no other hikers during our four days in this remote region called Galicia. We were on more of a tourist route though we saw very few tourists. We did see farmers driving their tractors out onto the mudflats of the deep bays at low tide to collect seaweed for their fields. We saw men nearby digging shellfish. Along the sandy beaches we saw Germans bobbing like seals in the water waiting for a good wave, their camper vans parked along dead end roads.  

  Our hike was a combination of beautiful views and anxiety that we might be on the wrong path.  Now there's something to meditate about.  We experienced language isolation because the local people didn't speak English and we didn't know their language. We couldn't get upset about it because we were in their country. Press two for English. Whenever we came across Dutch hikers or someone from the UK we had a nice chat.  We only met a handful of Americans in the month we were in Spain.

  After the hike we had no good reason to stay in Spain other than to see the church of the Sagrada Familia, that fantasy in stone by the architect Gaudi.  Sagrada Familia is supposed to be a church and it is a church. The cornerstone was laid in 1882, but the first mass was not said there until 2010 and the place  is still not done. What is going on? To be fair, it took 182 years to build Norte Dame in Paris. On the third hand, the much larger St. Peter's in Rome only took 126 years. 

  Sagrada Familia is in Barcelona on the Mediterranean, 700 miles east of Santiago. Cheap airfares save a lot of time, but getting to the airport and through security adds a lot of trepidation. Barcelona is a beautiful place if viewed through the lenses of the carefree traveler. We were warned off a certain area where the homeless lived. Could it be any worse than in our Portland?

  We could have gone home after Barcelona but then we would have missed the Alhambra, the fabulous Islamic fortress and palace outside Granada in the south. So we hopped on a flight to the south. Once we got set up in our hilltop lodging surrounded by groves of olive trees, we discovered the Alhambra was fully booked till after our flight home. Oh well, we didn't really want to see the Alhambra anyway.  We'd go to Córdoba instead and see the combination mosque and cathedral there.

  We had acquired a rental car by this time.  The roads in Spain are as good as at home and they drive on the right side of the road. But driving in the ancient towns is nerve wracking, so we took a ninety minute bus ride to Córdoba.  It was a twenty-five minute walk to the mosque from the bus station. That gave us an excuse to stop at a cafe for pastry.

  The Grand Mosque of Córdoba was gigantic. Córdoba had been the capital of Muslim Spain and North Africa. Its mosque was the second largest after Baghdad. We entered through the entrance to the mosque or former mosque. When the Christian's took over Córdoba in 1236, they converted the mosque into a church.  They covered over the Koranic texts and installed altars and statues, but left the basic structure of the mosque alone.  

  But no one ever lets well enough alone. In 1523 the bishop of Córdoba wanted to build a gothic cathedral in the middle of the mosque.  The city council said no way. The bishop appealed to the king who said way. After the cathedral was built the king was invited to mass there. He's reputed to have said, "Ouch."

  After our time in the south we had four days left over so we spent them in Madrid. This post was supposed to be a wrap. Perhaps I'll treat Spain to a Minnesota goodby.

Church meets mosque. Church sits on mosque.

 

Andalusia

  

   The world's first surrealist movie is called The Andalusian Dog. It was released in 1921. It’s a series of unrelated scenes, supposedly inspired by the director's dreams. Salvador Dali was somehow mixed up in it.

  Our week in Andalusia was a little like that. To fill in the time after our week in Barcelona and our flight home, we hooked up with a company that booked us in a hill town in Andalusia in the south. 

  We flew from Barcelona to Málaga on the Mediterranean coast and picked up the car that came with our “tour”. We got out of town fairly easily but it was weird for Google maps assistant to say “Take Massachusetts 21.” The assistant was interpreting the MA21 of Málaga province as a US state. It was a nice touch of home though.

  The jumbled hills north of Málaga looked exactly like Arizona. After half an hour the hills evened out and were covered with olive trees. Old olive trees, little olive saplings, and between-size trees all in neat rows on a beige soil. Only the most rugged hill tops were free of olive trees. Spain produces half the olive oil in the world and this is its most productive region.

  Our contact, Pablo, met us at a restaurant a few miles from Priego de Córdoba where we would be staying. That was good because we never would have found our lodging on our own.  The highways and secondary roads are just like the roads at home, but driving in the ancient towns is mind boggling.  The streets are narrow and twisting and you're never quite sure if you're going the wrong way on a one way street. Even Google maps is pretty useless in the towns.

  Ivan, our host directed me into his cramped underground garage and once I got in place I lost all desire to ever take the car out again, especially after Ivan told me I needed to do something to prevent the overhead door from coming down on the roof of our car as we drove out. Ivan's English was good but not good enough to make clear what that special thing was.

  Our apartment had a fantastic view of the olive tree covered hills and the mountains beyond. Ivan's place was one of a connected row of buildings perched on a high cliff. Our apartment was a good size with a sink, refrigerator and microwave. There was a common area kitchen with stove and oven. This was good because getting what we wanted in a Spanish restaurant was problematic. First there was the language barrier, and then you never knew if their hambueger corresponded to our hamburger until it was set before us. When we had the chance to cook, we bought pasta and sauce along with the excellent bread. A cop-out but a satisfying one.

Olives of Andalusia 

  Priego has a population of 22,000. It has a big baroque cathedral and many smaller churches. It has a big castle preserved from the Moor fighting days of several centuries ago.  There's a pretty walkway along the high cliff which leads to those narrow twisting streets which are fun to wander on foot. 

  Pablo took us to lunch the next day. We had been disappointed to find the grocery stores closed that morning. Pablo told us it was Spain's National Day (also Columbus Day) and everything was closed except the restaurants. It was good to have Pablo to help us order something we were sure to like. Also present was a woman using the same tour company. Carol had been traveling alone in Europe since April. We admired her stamina.  She had declined the rental car and taken the bus to Priego. If only we had known you could do that.

  The theory of having a car was that after seeing all of Priego, you could drive a couple of hours to see the sights in Granada, or Córdoba, or Sevilla. We stretched out the delights of Priego and finally decided to give driving a chance. We chose Sunday figuring traffic would be light. Ivan conveniently did that thing needed to prevent the door from coming down on the roof and we carefully picked our way out of town.

  There was a town a few miles away with Roman ruins. We drove right past the ruins and into the heart of the quiet town. We parked in front of the church and walked back to the ruins. There was just enough English on the plaques to let us know this was the villa of an olive growing estate 2,000 years ago. It was still quiet in town when we got back to the car. Google tried to get us out of town an a long narrow street that ended in a set of stairs. Was I in donkey mode?

  Back on the highway Teresa thumbed through the booklet the company had given us suggesting towns in the area.  Zagrilla Baja sounded inoculous, but once we got into its coils we just wanted to get out. We put Zagrilla Alta into Google. We were in Córdoba province and the assistant kept telling us to turn on Colorado such and such. Not funny anymore. Google took us on a narrow gravel road with olive branches brushing against the car.

  Once back on the relatively straight highway I noticed that following the convoluted map was killing the phone battery. Our car was so bare bones it lacked a USB port to charge my phone.  We got our bearings for our next destination then shut off the phone.  Of course we quickly got lost and were soon heading towards Màlaga on the freeway. If we could stay here a few months and learn Spanish, maybe life would be easy.  But I'm like an olive tree. Not much growth happens in a week.

  It was the bat cave that did me in. Teresa found a bat cave up in the hills. Sure. Who doesn't like a nice bat cave? I checked their website. Closed 1:30 to 4:30 for siesta. The saints be praised I said. It had just turned 1:30.  Teresa suggested driving up there just to see what the outside looked like. We made our way to Colorado 1362, very much a tertiary road, just wide enough for two cars to pass each other. As we wound our way into the hills and over steep crevasses, Zuheros came into view. That was where you got tickets for the cave. Surely there must be a road into the place but we settled for pictures since we weren’t going to the cave.

Zuheros: no go zone. 

   We had enough battery life on the phone to get us home. Ivan was out. As I drove into the garage Teresa said the door was coming down so I quickly backed out.  After experimenting, we found if Teresa stood in a certain spot, the door would stay up. I locked the car keys in the safe.

  A couple of days later we took the bus down to Córdoba to look at the famous old mosque. It had been the biggest mosque in the Muslim world west of Baghdad. The mosque was interesting, but it was annoying to see how the Christians, once they had pushed the Muslims out, had plopped their cathedral into one end of the mosque just because they could. 

  We had some New York Slice pizza behind the mosque and walked the half hour back to the bus station. By riding the bus we had no car troubles, but the bus presented its own problems. The bus driver told us our bus was not going to Priego even though the front of the bus said Priego.  A fellow passenger used her phone translator to explain where we'd have to changes busses.

  The afternoon bus was a local so we got to see the backside of several towns which is always interesting. I was content knowing we were on our way home where a big bowl of pasta would be cooked, Americano style.

Sagrada Familia

  

   When people asked Antoni Gaudi why his church was taking so long to build, he would say, "My client is not in a hurry." As a longterm student at Catholic schools, I too was kind of a client. The nuns would give us updates on progress on this weird building of curved spires and gaunt statues. Sister Eubestrabius told us the word gaudy came from the architect's name, but it really comes from an obsolete English word meaning joke, which in turn came from the French and Latin words for rejoice, so it all works out.

  Ground was broken for the church way back in 1882. The original architect quit after a year and the young Gaudi was put in charge. Gaudi had been playing with organic designs at a housing development for the rich and he started incorporating his ideas into the plain-vanilla gothic church that was just getting under way. 

Dem bones. The Bible in stone: the crucifixion, the empty tomb, and Christ ascending. Worth the trip.

  Gaudi developed an organic style inspired by natural forms. Rather than draw plans, he made models which continually evolved as time went on. He came up with structural innovations that did away with the flying buttresses of older churches. He wanted lots of light inside. He was devoted to his work and never married though he was close to his family and friends.

  Gaudi worked on the church for 43 years. At the time of his death in 1926, the building was less than one quarter complete. His disciples have tried to remain faithful to Gaudi's vision. In 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, anarchists damaged the church and destroyed some of Gaudi's original plans. Work on the church started again after the war in 1939

    The builders hope to have the church completed by 2026, the centennial of Gaudi’s death, but Covid halted then slowed construction for awhile. There is one more facade to complete and a few more towers including the Jesus tower which at 566.9 feet, will make Sagrada Familia the tallest church in the world.

  Gaudi was 73 when he died. He was on his way to mass when he was hit by a tram. He wore shabby clothes so people thought he was a tramp and it was a while before he got decent treatment. By the time he was recognized it was too late. There was a massive funeral and he was laid to rest in the crypt under the main altar of Sagrada Familia. Observers say it's unlikely the church will be complete in time for Gaudi's centennial. But what does it matter? Neither Gaudi nor his client is in a hurry. 

Let there be light. 

Photos by Teresa

Barcelona

 

   After our four day pilgrimage along the northwest coast of Spain we could have gone home, but decided since we were here we should see more of the country. 

  From Santiago we flew to Barcelona on the Mediterranean. The parts of this large city that we saw consisted of broad avenues lined with five or six story apartment buildings. The avenues are planted to sycamore trees. The secondary streets are also lined with apartment buildings and many of these streets have sycamore trees. There is always a shady side of the street. 

 Connecting the secondary streets are narrower streets and alleys of apartment buildings some with small trees. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, scooters, bikes, and pedestrians swarm these streets in greater or lesser number depending on the time of day. 

  We arrived in Barcelona during rush hour. We were tired so we splurged and took a cab to our lodging. It was worth it. Our Airbnb was in a building on a narrow street. Martin was supposed to meet us there with the key, but he was not there. 

  Cars, bikes and people, mostly parents picking their kids up, passed on the narrow street. We were warm. A young boy opened the heavy grill entrance door with a big key and went in. After 15 minutes Martin’s assistant arrived with the keys. 

  We were on the fifth floor. Teresa and her suitcase went up first in the tiny antique elevator. The assistant yelled up the stairs for Teresa to close the elevator doors so it would come back down. 

  I went up in the elevator with my suitcase, then it was the turn of the assistant. She opened the door to our dark narrow apartment, turning on lights as she went. Bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. She pulled open the curtains, tall glass doors, and wooden shutters revealing our little balcony and the balconies of our neighbors. 

La vista

  The temperature would be in the 80s every day during our week in Barcelona. Only the bedroom had a/c. A couple fans moved air around the living room. On the spectrum between luxury and squalor, our apartment was “good enough”. After days of long hikes around the city, it was home sweet home to us. 

  After four days of ten mile hikes on our recent pilgrimage, walking a few miles a day around Barcelona was not daunting. People had told us to skip the Rambla, the tacky tourist avenue, home of numberless souvenir shops, outdoor restaurants all selling the same thing, and the most skillful pickpockets in Europe. Bring it on we said.

  The whole point of travel is to feel, touch, and smell a place different from home. The chatter of the parakeets in the trees, the aroma of strange foods, the feel of my wallet gripped in my front pocket, safe from Fagan’s gang. 

  The Rambla, like every other street in the city, was lined with apartment buildings. The business of the city takes place on the first floor: restaurants, cafes, bakeries, often with tables out front, clothing stores, gift stores, artisan’s shops, everything you couldn’t imagine. Add in the endless stream of humanity and it's a feast for the eyes.   

  At the bottom of the Rambla not far from the sea is the statue of Columbus atop a tall tower. I had no desire to go to the top. Teresa said, “The kids would say, ‘Just do it’”. I said “Whatever.” There was no line for the tower and it was only six euros. The operator of the tiny circular elevator spoke English. That alone was worth five euros. He knew Boston is called Beantown.  I told him that in Beantown they took down their Columbus statue. He mentioned Captain Cook and other expropriators. In Columbus’ day it was ok to kill people if they refused to dig in your mine. Captain Cook was skewered on the beach by the Hawaiians. Columbus died suing the king for back pay. 

Tear that statue down!

  The most rewarding place we visited was the Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi's fantastical church. This place deserves a post of its own so I’ll leave it for later. 

  The elevator operator in the Columbus tower told us we could escape the tourist traps by visiting the Park of the Labyrinth. I could see on my phone map that this park was three miles from our apartment. The phone map didn’t show it was mostly uphill. 

  Labyrinth day was warm, as the road inclined upward. Two old guys sitting by an ancient water pump invited us to cool ourselves, which we did. They had never heard of the Park of the Labyrinth. 

  The straight streets of the lower city now began to twist and turn. I have offline maps on my phone but the blue dot showing our location has as poor a sense of direction as I do. Sometimes we had to walk a hundred feet before we knew we were going the wrong way. The area was as busy as downtown, but as promised, there were no tourists except us bedraggled ones. I noticed a subway stop on the map.  After some zigzagging, we found it. A local showed us how to manage the tickets. 

  Once home I did the research I should have done earlier. I discovered there was a different subway station just below the labyrinth park. So next morning we rode there in comfort. As a bonus, the park was free on Sundays. We joined the line of families headed that way. The labyrinth is just one part of this park, once the estate of a wealthy family. 

  We entered the labyrinth and made our way between the tall cypress trees. Some people were looking at their phones. After research the next day, I realized they were following a map of the labyrinth. We could see people on a portico outside the labyrinth looking back down at us, but we couldn't reach them. After numerous dead ends, we stumbled on the place we had come in. Enough of that. 

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. 

  The next day we walked to another park only a mile away from our apartment where Gaudi had lived and practiced designs he would use for Sagrada Famlia. It's now a museum. It was not free during our visit. It never is. We felt we had blown our Gaudi wad touring the church a few days earlier, so after taking a few pics, we headed for the subway which we rode all the way down to the sea.  

  We ended up back at the Columbus Tower. To the right were the docks where the cruise ships and freighters come in. To the left was the beach. The beach was our goal.  To get to the the beach (there are several beaches stretching along the coast of the city) we had to pass a huge marina. It's good to see so many people are able to afford such massive vessels. We saw the contestants of the Ms Trans World Competition doing a publicity shoot. We stopped for a snack at a harborside café.  And still we had to traipse across a Red Bull skate park and past numerous tents purveying stuff made in Barcelona. 

  At last the sea appeared. Lots of people were enjoying a sunny day on the beach. A breeze spread the big decorative blankets proffered by the beach towel men. Other men delivered water, beer, and mojitos to the crowd. Catamarans zipped across the horizon. A guy on a board manipulated a hang glider sail overhead till it pulled him out to sea at a high rate of knots. 

  We had done our sightseeing duty. Time to head back to the apartment to rest before our late supper. We were living like the locals. A nearby subway stop carried us quickly back to home. 

  Walking around the streets of the neighborhood in the evening was like living in a Brueghel painting. This for me is the main incentive for leaving the fleshpots of Wannaska. 

  

A Camino of One's Own

  

   Teresa and I flew to Spain last week to walk a pilgrimage. I used to think there was just one pilgrimage: the 500 mile hike across the Pyrenees from France to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. 

  This seemed a bit much and with further research I discovered there were many routes and these routes could be customized, by which I mean shortened. In all decency, the shortest we should shorten it to was four days of hiking. 

 There’s a company in England that will make the necessary arrangements for hikers like us. Our starting point would be Santiago where most people end their pilgrimage. After two days in Santiago a cab took us sixty miles west to the small fishing port of Camariñas. 

  I was told the seafood here was great. The catch of the day was chalked up on a board. The only thing I recognized was camarón: shrimp. Ok, a nice shrimp dinner sounded good. What I got was a heap of tiny shrimp. The waitress made a ripping off the head motion. The only way to get at the meat was to eat the shell too. The bread was good, as was the granola bar in our room. I resolved to learn Spanish before our next trip here.

  The first day of our hike was drizzly. As we walked down the promenade, a strong wind hit us and we tried out our new rain gear. The rain quit after an hour but the wind stayed strong all day. I had studied the maps and printed directions the company had sent us. We were to follow the green arrows or dots that the Friends of the Lighthouse Trail had marked our path with. Going astray on a long hike in a foreign country is no joke. 

  The Friends of the Trail had done a fairly good job of marking the trail, and the written directions were pretty good, but at certain crucial places where the road divided I would have paid ten euros for a green dot or less ambiguity in the directions. 

  When we did go astray in the afternoon, it was my fault. I was getting tired and failed to scrutinize the directions closely enough. I was sure we were going the right way but we weren't. When you think you’re right it takes a jolt to set you right again. I got that jolt coming over a rise in the road and seeing the wide Rio Porto where it should not have been.

  We turned around and passed a path that would have taken us directly to our lodging if we had only known it. We hiked back almost to the spot we had gone wrong but not quite far enough. I was now fully tangled up in my underwear. We proceeded to hike right past our lodging but the sign was covered with bushes so we kept going, thinking it was further up the hill.

  I was about to turn on our cellular and pay the hefty tariff when Teresa asked a woman in her garden where our place was. All we could make out was casita and derecho. Go right at the little house? She pointed back the way we had come. Further on we asked another woman. She pointed the same way and said izquierda, left. We came to a little house. On the left side was what looked like a private home. Could it be our goal? We walked through the gate and saw the small sign for Reception. Yes yes yes! We were saved. 

  On day two the weather was great and we continued along the coast and through forests of pine and eucalyptus. We walked about two miles longer than necessary due to another screw up on my part which I won’t go into here as it’s embarrassing. 

  We cut day three short by taking a cab a few kilometers down the road. We needed an easy day after my double fiascos. 

  Day four was not especially long but it was the hardest because of the climbing up to the sea cliffs along the side of a mountain. It took our breath away, literally. 

  On our way down from the cliffs we ran into a Dutch couple around our age who told us of their hikes all over Europe. It was great to have an extended conversation in English. 

Anti-gravity girl

  Our hike ended in Finisterre or World’s End, the westernmost point in Spain. Our tour company had booked us in the nice hotel at the end of the point by the lighthouse.  At sunset the tourists came to watch the sun sink into the sea. Goats came up the rocky slopes to graze. It was nice. And nice that we were done. 

End of the trail

A Trip to Beyond

   "Travel is great once you get there." I don't know who said that first. Possibly Marco Polo. Maybe Lewis in a note to Clark. I know I said it to Teresa as I opened our hotel window overlooking the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. "We are here," Teresa added.

  Some people say planning a trip is half the fun. That's only true if you're planning a day trip to the beach or some such easy destination. We were planning to go on a pilgrimage in Spain. For over a thousand years people have been hiking across northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. We wanted to join them.

  The most popular route starts in France, crosses the Pyrenees Mountains, and travels west for around 500 miles. It takes most people 35 days and when they get to Santiago they get a scallop shell on a string to hang on their backpack. That sounded like fun till I read that long sections of the hike were like walking across northern Minnesota. Maybe we could just hike across the more scenic portions. 

  That's when I discovered a British company called On Foot Holidays which sets up self-guided tours all over Europe. They arrange lodging, give you detailed maps, and move your luggage from inn to inn. One of their itineraries is on the final eleven days of the Santiago hike. We decided to do that last spring until we discovered our passports were about to expire. 

  We applied for new passports and during the summer we started taking long walks. We realized we were not up to eleven days of 12-15 miles per day. We found that On Foot had another hike that started west of Santiago and continued on to the Atlantic coast at Finisterre or "World's End". This hike was ten days long but could be shortened to seven or even four days and those days could be shortened from 15 miles to 10. That sounded about right so we booked.

  We drove to Massachusetts in late September to visit our kids and on September 24, we flew to Madrid and then up to Santiago. We gave ourselves a couple of days in Santiago to recover from jet lag and enjoy the ambiance. Santiago probably has more going for it besides half a million pilgrims arriving in their town every year, but that's all we focused on during our stay. 

  There was a gigantic baroque cathedral with a huge plaza out front where the pilgrims officially finished their hike. It was fun to watch them arrive and pose for photos by the paving stone with the big scallop shell. They looked muy, muy feliz. There were dozens of little restaurants and even more souvenir shops in the narrow, winding streets around the cathedral. There were extra churches around the cathedral and museums to explain it all.

"We made it!"

  The Museum of the Camino explained what the big deal was about. St James was one of Jesus' favorite apostles. According to the Bible, he was beheaded in Jerusalem for preaching the gospel. According to tradition he had gone Spain at some point to spread the good news. After his beheading, his Spanish disciples brought his body to Spain for burial.  In the eighth century a monk had a vision of Saint James' grave. The local bishop built a much nicer tomb and the local king made a pilgrimage and built a church over the tomb and the pilgrims have been coming ever since.

The Saint is in.

  St. James' bones are in a crypt under the cathedral's main altar. Does the silver encrusted chest really contain the bones of the apostle? I'm certainly not going to spoil the fun at this late date. 

Donated pilgrims' walking sticks. 
The pilgrims encourage each other with Ultreia! Further!