Walking The Santiago......

Saturday, May 12, 2018
Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain and Canary Islands
Saturday & Sunday
We left Braga at midday and got out of town fairly easily as the roads were not busy and the S&S driving team were in sync.  
It was a good  trip mostly on minor roads. We stopped to refuel at a Portuguese’s bakery to get a ham roll and portugese tarts. We crossed  the river Minho and found we had gone from the town of Valença, Portugal to the town of Tui, Spain while crossing the river. Time moved forward an hour while crossing the lovely river. Thanks Portugal for our lovely experience. Both Susan & Simon would like to return. 
You are unable to dine early in Spain. Most places do not reopen for dinner until 8pm. 8.30 being a common time and 9pm not that unusual. We found a funky wee bar / restaurant - think of Lyttelton’s Civil & Naval but a bit bigger. They were open but we had to wait for the kitchen to open. It filled up with locals and for our food to be delivered to our table involved a few people moving and the use of long arms. It was quite cramped. Simon stupidly didn’t take a photo of how wedged in we were. It was worth the wait. We headed back to hotel in the drizzle. We were surprised by large number  number of people out with young children.
After a disturbed nights sleep a band was playing at outdoor dance until 3am! We woke to a bleak cold morning and Simon went to walk the last km of the Camino de Santiago by visiting the Cathedral and touching the sacred Angel. Pilgrimage complete. Opposite the Cathedral was the imposing Monasterio de San Martin Pinario. It was built as a Monastery way back then and now Today it continues as seminary Compostela and also site of the Department of Theology and Social Work. So many churches in the area they all tend to look the same - a bit like going to the mall! 
The hotel has a breakfast buffet available 24/7 of Muesli, Fruit, Juice, Coffee so we had healthy breakfast and then had a wee drive around the cobbled streets before heading to Ribadeo. We again travelled on the minor roads so saw plenty of lovely countryside and the motorway viaducts nearby every now and then.  As the weather was grotty we smiled when we saw walkers walking in the Camino. 
We got to Ribadeo and after a wee mission got the keys to what is basically a 1 bedroom apartment. The Wifi is worse the useless so booking Monday’s accommodation was a bit of a mission. The host said they had just changed to Vodafone and the 5G network was not particularly fast. 
We are booking 1 day ahead in case we really love a place. We are trying to use hotels as they are often cheaper and ok for one night stands Oops stays. 
Sunday night our choice of where to eat was limited and made harder when the first one we went to, after reading a Trip Advisor, was closed. We drove around a bit more and found a small place, Bar Queimada which was full of locals and had some interest Octopus and Pigs Ear!  We then back tour our tiny apartment for the night. 
We have nearly clocked up 1000km with all travelling well - Simon, Susan and Skimobile. The 3 S’s +Isn’t that sweet!
Next stop is going to be in Gijón. There are not many photos for this edition as it is too hard to ‘snap ‘ an image of the amazing vistas plus the roads do not have a lot of areas where you can pull over.  You will just have to add it to your ‘bucket list’ or Google the view.
Note about traffic lights. We (Jane & Simon) had noted in Porto that cars always seemed to be tooting the car in front once the lights had just gone green. Simon since driving the Skimobile has worked out a probable reason - if you are the front car and stop too close to the actual intersection ie just before the white line, you cannot see the traffic light as they have only one on your corner and not across the road where you are looking. So car behind you toots to let you know it’s green to go! So you stop half a Skimobile length from the line and look up to your right. Some sets have. Red/Green light at Eye height as well. Weird.
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