An unpromising weather forecast this morning led us to decide to head away from leon, either south to salamanca or across to santiago de compostella. We decided to go for Santiago because the journey would be more interesting (more green bendy bits on the map). To begin with it threatened to rain and we had our breakfast (2.50€ for coffee, a small juice and a choice of snackettes of which only the half sandwich with cheese/ham was available) in a hurry before setting off. (One of the other alternatives was pueda which I looked up and found meant flea...nice)
In fact in the end, although it wasn't nice all the time, it didn't rain OR snow on us and occasionally a beam our two of sun squeezed through to try to perk the whole business up. We stopped twice on the way, at pontferrara and orense, once for coffee and once for a chocolate caliente (hot choc) which they didn't have but did have colacao which turned out to be hot chocolate. According to P, chocolate caliente is actually melted chocolate. How can nobody have told me that til now?! Now waiting for another opportunity to try it.
Although the journey was pretty epic (we started wondering half way there how we were going to get back for the ferry) it was an interesting ride. Partly really good bendy twisty roads which were the first of the trip in the dry, and we passed through all kinds of areas. Lots of small towns and villages filled with a mixture of old crumbling buildings, old but still lived in homes with rickety wooden balconies and tiny doors, new builds in interesting colours, done very grand, and some very modern, angular ones. They were all clustered together, often with a tumble down abandoned old shack right between two others that still had people in. There was a lot of industry at some points along the way, especially hydro electric power stations where whole valleys had been flooded, and quite a few slate mines - or were they coal?...
We passed eerie moss-covered trees which we soon realised was caused by permanent low cloud, and dormant stumpy black vines clinging to the sides of the hills and all waiting to make this year's tasty wine but as we headed east it got more agricultural and also warmer. There was a constant reminder of the need for pig manure, blossom started coming out and there were some remarkable wisterias that looked like trees.
All along the way for the past 2 days we have been seeing the camino de santiago with the occasional waterproof clad pilgrim on it, on their way to santiago de compostela. Late in the afternoon we arrived there too - it's pretty big and industrial looking and not immediately obviously a holy kind of place (although with our unerring abilities we sniffed the religious bits out later). We had found a bargain hotel in the 'area central'. This turned out to be actually in a shopping centre and the view from our windows was an indoor shop scene. Weird. To get in the hotel ali did a lot of spanish and even understood the instructions for the car park.
We headed out in search of the old town, passing by a supermarket (we have hardly seen any of these, at least not any open ones) which was selling the largest ever apples. Ali ate one, the biggest intake of green this week. The old town was very old and twisty, full of tat shops (P got a bike sticker for the boxes with the nice santiago logo on it, a combination of a shell and the route plan of the pilgrimage), bars and pilgrims. We pottered about a bit, took pictures on the main square, located yet another pointy hat parade, this time depicting the dead jesus and involving the military and a superior if lead atmospheric band, then accepted our fate and went into the first bar of the evening to watch it pass by and have a wine (this time ribera del duero, not as nice as rioja) and a snackette. We went to a 1€ bar later where you could order a wide range of freshly made mini roll based snackettes for 1€ each...definitely a good model for the uk. As we headed home we passed back through the main square and enjoyed some guitar and singing music by a group of men wearing long capes with badges from all the places they had played. Then we ventured into the cathedral as the service was ending and listened to the fantastic organ playing while we looked at the staggeringly beautiful and ornate gold and silver altar. Amazing just how much time, effort and skill went into it. And a fitting end to a long pilgrimage (plus some restorative rioja and ham of course).
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