A Coruña Day 2

Today I walked through what yesterday was a cold, windy, gray ghost town and found blue skies, warm weather, cafes full of people who all looked super contento, kids playing in the parks, and people lounging on the beach. I don’t know where yesterday’s A Coruña went, but I don’t have time to find out because I’m leaving early tomorrow morning.

I took advantage of A Coruña’s improved attitude by walking several miles to (and up) the Tower of Hercules, a lighthouse built by the Romans in the First Century AD, when they were in charge of Spain (and most of Europe). It’s the oldest known lighthouse from the Roman Empire. 

It was modernized somewhat in the 1700’s but it is fundamentally still the original, so it had good bones, as they say. I’m sure when Gaius Sevio Lupo finished this thing he probably said something like “well this lighthouse isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” (but in Latin of course), and he was right. It’s still here 2,000 years later. 

I was at that point also pretty much at the end of Spain, which looks like this.

Then tonight, dinner at a fantastic restaurant that I made a reservation for a month ago because that’s how you have to do it at this place. They recommended the tasting menu, which is 9 or 10 “courses” of small plates and the food was amazing. Not sure I would come to A Coruña just for this, but if I were anywhere near here again I would definitely come back to this place.

Up tomorrow at 6 am to (hopefully) find a taxi and then a train that can get me back to Santiago de Compostela and to the airport in time for my afternoon flight. I thought this wasn’t something I had to plan out ahead of time and by this time tomorrow I’ll know if I thought right.

A Coruña

I never was particularly partial to the Catholic church, but when I discovered that one of the most famous cathedrals in the world is willing to swing a 100-lb. piece of smoking metal over a crowd of worshippers at 40 m.p.h. for $500.00, I decided it was worth another look. And I was correct, there is at least one pretty great thing about the Catholic church.

As for A Coruña, the only corner of Spain I hadn’t yet visited, it’s a place where the sea and wind continually buffet you, the place is full of office and apartment buildings, it rains 160 days each year and even when the sun is out it still kind of feels like it’s raining (it’s hard to explain).

I’ve gone from the land of kind angels guiding a solid stone boat across two oceans to a place that will toughen you up if you can handle it. And it’s full of contradictions. A commercial fishing center, yet when I ordered seafood for lunch the waiter confidentially advised me against it, telling me I’d be disappointed. A beach town, but the beach is right next to a major road that is lined with huge buildings. It makes me appreciate things that are what they say they are, like the restaurant down the street from my apartment called “Burritos and Cookies” does actually only sell burritos and cookies.

But all in all, there’s a very different vibe here than Barcelona, which has stores like “Happy Socks”
and “Mutt Bookshop,” compared to this.

Even the street signs are slightly threatening.

Tomorrow I’ll walk over the to the Tower of Hercules and see if a monument left by the Romans after their bloody conquest of Spain can brighten the mood a little.

Santiago de Compostela

As much as I dislike the idea of obtaining actual information that might affect my perception of things, I signed up for a walking tour of Santiago de Compostela today and learned:

1. My estimate yesterday that I probably arrived here along with “hundreds” of other pilgrims was slightly off. Yesterday alone, 1,976 people arrived and requested an official certificate of having walked the Camino, and that doesn’t include people like me who didn’t get my passport stamped along the way. In high season, it’s not unusual for them to issue close to 4,000 every day and last year about a half million people got a certificate.

2. The ornate front of the cathedral is more or less a façade because during the time of baroque architecture, the church decided that the front of the cathedral wasn’t fancy enough, so they hired an architect to make it a little spiffier, resulting in the current look. The old one is mostly still there behind the new one.

3. The church liked their new look and feel so much that they wanted views from every direction to seem just perfect. One side of the church faced an apartment building, which didn’t provide great optics, so they built a wall directly in front of the apartment building with fake windows and doors to match the rest of the look and feel of the plaza. No word on how the residents felt about that.

I also shared some of my knowledge with the tour group. The tour leader (who was very nice) explained how the so-called “Catholic Kings” Ferdinand and Isabella thought the pilgrims weren’t being adequately cared for, so they built a huge hospital in Santiago de Compostela where everyone could get free health care. In an effort to build bridges of communication with our neighbors in other countries, I commented that Ferdinand and Isabella also expelled all of the Jews and Muslims from Spain, revoked their citizenship and seized their property. “Yes,” she said, “we do have a bit of a complicated history.”

Along the way, the tour guide showed us a convent and said that the nuns sell cakes and cookies baked according to traditional recipes hundreds of years old. Having made a Tarta de Santiago myself, I decided to put theirs to the test.

There was a dark entryway with no sign of life (shown at right). 

I was about to leave and noticed a tiny doorbell next to a shuttered window that had bars over it, appearing kind of like a prison to us, but I guess it looks like a store to nuns. I rang the bell, the shutter squeaked open and a little nun (sorry, she was actually little) asked what I wanted. I asked for a slice of a Tarta de Santiago; she reappeared with my cake and slid it through the bars. 

My approach was somewhat different than theirs (this is a picture of my cake and their slice). Not to judge, but while theirs clearly has a better chance of getting you eternal redemption, I think I win on presentation. And they seem to like sugar way more than I do. 

Anyway, you may have heard that the cathedral here has a huge swinging incense burner that weighs 120 pounds and hits 40 m.p.h. when it gets going. Because it is a place of worship, they only use it three occasions – on Fridays, on holy holidays, and when anyone from the public shows up and pays $500 to see it swing. Our tour leader has connections with church staff, who told her off the record that someone paid for morning mass tomorrow. I know where I’ll be.

Bike Ride Day 6 - Calda de Reis to Santiago de Compostela

This was the last day of my ride, and I successfully made it to Santiago de Compostela without any flat tires, broken chains or major injuries over the course of 6 days.

Despite the fact that the town I left from this morning has maybe three streets, this is what I did trying to find the correct way out. Perhaps the coffee wasn’t as strong as it seemed.

I arrived here along with several hundred pilgrims. Scenes like this along the way weren’t typical, but it did happen from time to time. A guy I bought a cold drink from told me that the crowds are much larger in the spring and fall than they are now. But even with these groups, people were very nice to me when I rang my little bell coming up behind them. “Buen Camino” they would call out to me, over and over and over again as they scampered out of the way and I left them in a cloud of dust.

And here’s the payoff, the cathedral of St. James. There were lots of people resting on the ground, heads on their backpacks or taking group pictures holding their fingers in the shape of a “V” or some other gang symbols with which I’m not familiar. Some of them have been walking for many weeks to get here. During the last six days I passed lots of people along the way changing clothes, rubbing ointment on their blistered feet, conducting animated video calls with loved ones on speaker, trying to get a good cell signal, etc. and they always seemed to be pretty chipper.

The Camino itself is a mixed bag. There are probably thousands of ways to take the “Camino” across France, Spain and Portugal, and the settings are wildly varied, from forest and oceanfront paths to village and city streets and highways. I understand the appeal of walking it, but I would be way too impatient.

Tomorrow is a free day in Santiago and then off to the rugged northwestern coast of Spain. But before I leave, do I want a commemorative statuette, shot glass, or tattoo?

Bike Ride Day 5 - Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis

The symbol of the Camino is a scallop shell, the idea being that many different roads lead to Santiago de Compostela just as the many different lines on the shell converge at what I guess is the back from the scallop’s point of view. Regardless, now that I’m only one day out from Santiago, I have experienced what I shall call the “Curse of the Camino” in which crowds of pilgrims are clogging the paths as they come together at the back of the shell.

There are so many people converging here on their spiritual journey (or as I put it “in my way”) that I rode on the shoulder of the highway for a while today because I found it more peaceful.

These are some pilgrims in a temporary holding facility that the church uses to even out the flow. Ha ha, actually they’re having cappuccino and yogurt on the Camino at one of the many cafes called the “Pilgrim [insert second word here].”

Why all the fuss? In the 9th century, back when people had opinion-based versions of reality and were susceptible of believing all kinds of crazy stories as long as they fit with their existing beliefs, kind of like today, news spread rapidly of an amazing discovery. The remains of one of Jesus’s apostles, St. James, appeared in northwestern Spain. How is this possible? Simple. When James died, angels placed the body in a solid stone boat on the Mediterranean in the Middle East and it drifted randomly toward Spain, then through the Straits of Gibraltar and up the Spanish coast, where it landed and then got itself buried in Santiago de Compostela, where it was found hundreds of years later. Everyone agreed that all of this was totally plausible so they built a church there.

As news spread, people from all over Europe started coming to see St. James. Up to this point Spain had been kind of isolated from the rest of Europe because it’s surrounded by water on three sides and mountains to the north. So while Europe was getting all cultured, Spain was out of the loop. But now that hundreds of thousands of Europeans were travelling across northern Spain to see the remains of St. James, many of them started getting ideas about civilizing the place, like “I should start playing my native music here,” or “We should build a church like the ones back home in France,” or “Why don’t they eat oysters here? Let’s start selling oysters and using forks.” 

Because of this, to grossly oversimplify the next thousand years in a way that would get you kicked out of a freshman college history class, northern Spain became cosmopolitan, wealthy and diverse. And to this day there is a cultural and economic divide between northern and southern Spain, which has led to strong separatist movements in the north that still exist (see sign from my ride today).

OK, enough of all that. Tomorrow, Santiago de Compostela, where the religious relic shops outnumber the tourists.

But in the meantime, I’m staying in a converted old paper mill up in the mountains with flowing water on two sides, a river-fed pool and manicured gardens, giving me slightly less to complain about.

Bike Ride Day 4 - Baiona to Pontevedra

When people plan long bike rides for me, I prefer that the most painful climbing take place at the beginning. Which it did today, but it also happened again at the end when I thought I had already finished my exercise for the day. I think I would have moved faster walking up the last mountain, but I was determined to say that I rode the entire way.

Today’s ride took me through Vigo, a large, very urban city in northwest Spain. As an aside, Vigo is so hilly that there are outdoor public escalators everywhere just to allow pedestrians to get around. 

I spent quite a lot of time in Vigo trying to find a store that sells bike mirrors to replace the one I hypothetically lost yesterday. None of the large, stylish bike stores I went to sold mirrors but each was sure that some other particular one did and it was “really close to here” so I went from store to store for over an hour, riding in traffic congestion, dodging people and delivery trucks, thinking that this was exactly the reason why people need bicycle mirrors. But no luck, so I gave up and decided to finish the trip mirrorless (which I hate because, to state the obvious, the only way to look out for traffic behind me is to not look where I’m going).

I rode out of town and was at the last bit of outskirts heading up the mountain and I happened to pass this small, very non-stylish neighborhood bike shop. I decided to stop, and . . . you know the rest of the story. Miracle or non-miracle? You make the call.

There is an official way to obtain Camino de Santiago “certificates” that prove that . . . actually I’m not sure what they prove, but people travelling the Camino like to get them. When you start your journey, you get a Camino “passport,” which you have to get stamped at least twice a day at a registered stamping place and then when you show up at Camino Headquarters (the main cathedral in Santiago de Compostela) a “passport officer” (or priest, I don’t really know), verifies your passport stamps and gives you a certificate. 

My take on this is as follows (thanks for asking). I hate to be seen as someone who assesses the piousness level of others, but . . . I feel like if you walk the Camino with an intentional spirituality and maybe stop at some of the innumerable Virgin Mary statues to do your rosary (assuming that’s what one does), then sure, stamp your passport. But if you’re just out to enjoy the scenery and after a long day of exercise you stop at a bar for a couple of beers and that bar happens to be licensed to stamp Camino passports (like this one), I’m not sure you should get full credit. For this reason, I’m traveling stampless.

Tonight I’m in Pontevedra, where feeding the pigeons is a thing. 

And from today:

Bike Ride Day 3 - Caminha to Baiona

When looked at the map this morning to get a sense of where I was going, I noticed that my ride started with about ½ mile of open water where the Minho River opens to the sea and forms the border between Portugal and Spain. Choosing the most practical option, I grabbed a water taxi. Question: If I (totally hypothetically here) accidently dropped my bicycle mirror in the water halfway through the taxi ride while messing with my helmet, did I lose it in Portugal or Spain?

After two days of level rides, I’ve started hitting some hilly terrain that is going to get more hilly in coming days. In keeping with my attempts to seek religion-relevant metaphors wherever I go, I found myself today not enjoying the downhill riding because I knew that every downhill meant another uphill around the corner. Go with peace.

Last night at the café, this dog at the next table was obsessed with me. The people with her laughed and
said that she typically isn’t eager to interact with strangers but that she could tell that I was gentle of spirit and kind of soul. Or maybe they were saying that she wanted my food. I don’t know, they were speaking Portuguese.

Today I’m in Baiona, Spain. This town is most famous for the fact that the Pinta (of Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria fame) was the first of Columbus’s ships back and Baiona was its first stop. As such, the people of Baiona were the first Spaniards to learn of the success of the voyage. 

This is one of several large commemorative things celebrating Baiona’s connection to what this plaque calls the “discovery of the Americas.” If I had more time here, I would explain that the Central and South Americans feel very strongly that they couldn’t have been “discovered” because they were very well self-aware of the fact that they were there and that they had a very successful civilization that Spain ultimately destroyed, which means that there should be a day of mourning rather than one of celebration. But I’m off on another ride tomorrow so someone else will have to take care of delivering that news.

I did, however, pay the €1 fee to visit the exact replica of the Pinta in Baiona harbor. It was surprising to me how small it was. They say there was a crew of 25, but it’s hard for me to imagine how 25 people fit on this thing let alone live on it for months.

Then all of my unsettled feelings drifted away when I discovered that I was staying at the ultra-luxurious Parador de Baiona, which is a refurbished 16th century building in the walled-off old city. You have to walk through two massive stone archways to get here from town, and past Porsches, Volvos and Jaguars, whose owners seemed thrilled to see my riding up, sweaty, smelly and leaving trails of mud in the parking lot. It’s a bit of a walk downhill from here to the waterfront, but I understand the need for us to maintain a little separation from the common people. I will sleep well tonight.

From today: