Madrid - July 24,2014 - Last Day and Final Blog Post

After handling the phone theft issues, Dave and I got back into touring Madrid. Most of the major attractions are in central Madrid and within walking distance of our hotel. The most important attraction is the huge Prado museum, which took most of yesterday to tour, just hitting the highlights. Unfortunately all of our pictures from yesterday were on the stolen "gypsy" iPhone, so nothing to post from that or from our extensive bicycle tour on the prior day. Today we returned to hiking around by foot, crisscrossing the city for closer looks at some of the sites visited briefly during the bike tour. 

City hall is located on Plaza Mayor - a very large square that was once the scene of bullfights and Inquisition trials and executions. 

The nearby Mercado San Miguel was originally built in the early 1900's, fell into disrepair, but was brought back to life in 2003. It's a beautiful iron and glass building. Instead of air conditioning it uses a misting system to keep patrons cool.

The market sells fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood, and is full of tapas stalls. Tourist and locals gather around 4 in the afternoon to enjoy a beverage and tapas after work. 

This plate holds barnacles. We enjoyed these as a first course at our hotel in Finisterre.  Each barnacle has a tiny piece of meat. Very salty. A lot like picking crabs. 

The Gran Via is a major road in Madrid central. It was built in the early 20th century, so there are no really old buildings.

Looking west. 

Looking east.

The Royal Palace rivals Versailles in size and over-the-top ornamentation. It has 2000 rooms and was built in the early 18th century after the previous palace was destroyed by fire. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother ruled here for a few years. 

These statues (108 in all) of previous kings of Spain were originally meant for the palace roof, but the king's mother had a dream that one fell on her during an earthquake.  So instead, they were placed throughout various rooms in the palace. Eventually, someone had the bright idea of placing them around Madrid, and even as far away as Burgos.

The Royal Palace from the outer courtyard. 

The ceiling fresco in the main entrance.  Most of the public rooms had large ceiling frescos.

The inner courtyard.

Unfortunately, we were not permitted to photograph inside.

Overlooking the former Royal hunting grounds that is now a public park 10 times bigger than Central Park in New York City. 

We took the Teleferrico (air tram) over and into the park. There really isn't much there.  Madrid is in a desert-like climate, so the green in the picture above is misleading. Once over the park, dry dust paths criss crossed the area.

As our trip comes to an end with tomorrow's return flight, we have one pressing question to answer soon. 

Does David's beard stay, or does it go?

Madrid - July 23, 2014

I was going to post pictures from our bicycle tour, but I've had a bad day.

For those of you who have seen the movie "The Way", remember the scene where a gypsy kid steals the backpack?  Well, I had my gypsy theft moment today. 

After spending the morning in the Prado Museum, Dave and I were sitting at an outside cafe having lunch. A young man, about eleven or twelve, came up to our table trying to get us to buy something out of a brochure. We said no, and asked him to leave. He persisted laying the brochure on the table, and unnoticed by me, on top of my iPhone. Dave and the waiter made him leave, but he palmed my phone on the way!  

We spent the next two hours shutting down, and wiping my phone data, and then buying another phone to be shipped for our arrival at home this weekend. Of course our next upgrade isn't due for another six months. A very expensive lunch!

I'm glad I transferred most of our trip photos to the iPad for use in the blog. As it is, the pictures from our bicycle tour yesterday are gone. 

We have one more day here in Madrid. Hopefully it's better than today. 

July 20, 2014 Siguenza, Spain

Yesterday, we left rainy Galicia and drove east to the Guadalajara region of Spain. Where Galicia has a climate similar to the Pacific Northwest of the United States, Guadalajara is more like the southwest, dry with scrub brush vegetation.

The drive took as back over some of the very areas we had walked just days or weeks before. We drove way overhead of Herrerias on the Autovia.  Just a couple of weeks before, we took a picture of the flyovers from below. 

All that green wheat we photographed a month ago - is now golden and being harvested. 

After so much walking, it's amazing how much ground can be covered in a car - we drove more than 500 miles in 8 hours. 

We arrived our lodging, a medieval castle, a little after 6 pm. The Spanish government has restored some old government owned buildings and turned them into hotels. The best are called Paradors. We are staying in the Parador de Siguenza. 

Although we felt guilty about it (we hadn't walked 12 miles), we spent the rest of the evening lounging about.  

And since Dave booked the honeymoon suite, what's not to like?

We held off going to dinner as long as we could, trying to act more like Spaniards. So when we finally went to dinner around 9, we yawned over most of the meal.

A sound nights sleep, and a leisurely Sunday buffet breakfast, prepared us for the town tour. We saw most of it in an hour, and decided to walk it again just because we're used to walking all day.   :)

Beside the castle, the 12th century cathedral is the main attraction. 

On our first go round we saw half of the cathedral because a mass was being said. 

This Madonna statue has been in this church since the 12th century. 

After leaving the church, we walked up a side street and saw this sign. We tried to google translate Casco, and came up with helmet. Mmmm...not sure that's accurate. Since three out of four signs recommended going straight, (even though two were clueless), that's what we did, since we were also clueless. 

Seems like we were inside the castle fortification - found several old portals. 

This last one took us outside the old city onto the Don Quioxte Trail. 

We thought about another hike, but decided we'd snap a few photos and head back in to see the rest of the cathedral and have lunch. 

The backside of the castle. 

The backside of the Cathedral. 

When we went back to the church, we stopped near a tour group. Even though it was in Spanish, we could pick up a few words here and there, enough to get the gist of the lecture. 

When they moved towards a very large closed door, we drifted along with them. It had to be something cool - the key to the door was about 9 inches long and must have weighed a pound.

Just as we were about to enter what looked like an ornate chapel, the tour leader asked for our receipt. BUSTED.  We sheepishly headed back to part of the church reserved for the common serfs. 

Having pretty much exhausted what there was to see in the town, and not caring to visit any more trinket shops, we popped into a cafe for lunch, finding something different than jamon bogadillos. We shared 6 sliders made up of a variety of meat, sausage, and chicken. 

After lunch we walked back up the hill to the hotel, and "good" internet service, needing to plan our upcoming Madrid visit. "Good" internet service consists of finding the right corner of the lobby or courtyard area that has weak wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee). Fortunately, the courtyard cafe had an open table. 

Dave figured out the logistics of dropping the car off at the airport and either taking the subway, or taxi into the center of Madrid. To deter vehicular traffic, the government makes it very expensive to drive and/or park in the city center. It's much easier to take public transportation.

I found a bicycle tour that will give us an overview of the Madrid highlights on Tuesday, and then we will decide what to delve into on Wednesday and Thursday.  Friday is the day we fly home. 

Finisterre or Bust - Day 5

Total distance today = 14.2 miles

Total ascent today = 984 feet

Cumulative Finisterre miles = 60.1 miles

Cumulative distance = 550.6 miles

We're done! 550 miles on the Camino de Santiago de Compastella - across Spain from St. Jean de Pied de Port in France, to Finisterre, the western most point of land in Europe. 

The day started overcast and cool, but that didn't dampen spirits as we headed around the harbor toward the next village, Corcubion. 

Corcubion was getting ready for a medieval town festival this weekend, but nothing was open as we went through in the early morning. 

It didn't take long to be shunted out the town's back door and out of sight. 

Big yellow arrow showing us the way out of town between two tall walls.

This path led up and over the first hill of the day, and some great views. 

At the top of the hill we ran into this lady and her little lambs. 

She fed the first ewe bread to keep her moving. All the others followed until they got to the grass.

Then the switch came out. 

Hiking up the next mountain, we entered our final Concello - Concello de Fisterra. 

We walked through the back streets to Estorde. 

Then it was up and over the day's second hill, catching our first good view of Finesterre, shrouded in a cloud. 

Finesterre is the town at the base of the far mountain. Our final destination was Cabo Fisterra, the lighthouse about one third of the way up the mountain, at the far left end of the land. We were relieved we didn't need to climb all the way to the top. 

We came down the mountain directly onto the beach and walked through the sand for the two kilometers from Praia de Langosteira to Finesterre. 

Once in Finesterre, we sought out the Albergue Municipal to collect our second Compostella. The Compostella is the certificate for completing an entire "pilgrimage."  In this case, the hike away from Santiago to Finisterre is another pilgrimage on top of our hike from France to Santiago. A helpful pilgrim told us the albergue was closed until 1pm, so we decided to eat lunch first. A salad and some very good pulpo (octopus), had us ready for the afternoon. 

A brief stop for the Compostella and we headed for our hotel - up a very steep hill and out of town. But the trip still wasn't complete. We wanted to finish at Cabo Fisterra, the lighthouse at the headlands. We asked our host the best way to go, and he advised that we take the northern pathway around the mountain - less people and no cars. As it turned out, this route was extremely remote and we saw no one the entire way  

So off we went. There was some climbing to do, but we had all ready done a lot just getting to the hotel. We finally emerged from the tree-lined path to a spectacular view of both the "front" and "back" beaches to Finesterre. This is looking back over the town, away from our destination at the headland. The hike so far today had started behind the furthest mountain seen here, and the beach we walked in the  morning is to the far right:

The path leveled out and turned into a jeep trail, and the view was great. 

But then the road split, and the way markers told us to go UP!  Way up. No! Not more up!

By the condition of the trail we could tell that it wasn't used often. 

No wonder. It took us to the top of the mountain - the one we weren't going to climb. 

This elevation gave a view of the lighthouse that not many people see. 

We finally made our way down, stood in front of the 0 kilometer marker, visited the museum, and walked down the rocky outcropping to get as close to the "end of the world" as we could. 

On the way back up we looked at all the boots, socks and shirts other peregrinos had left behind. 

This is a brass boot, rooted above one of two fire pits that pilgrims use to burn articles or written statements of item or feelings they are ready to let go after the long pilgrimage. 

The fire pit 

Land side of the lighthouse and up a small hill is the peace pole, placed by the international World  Peace Project. 

We decided to take the less arduous route back to the hotel, not realizing that we would be on the road the whole way. 

After 4 kilometers of whooshing cars, we finally got back to Finesterre, welcomed by this nice 12th century church:

Before descending all the way back down to sea level in town, We decided to check for an alternate route.  We found one just past the church. It was a single track that led us through several farm plots, and past these watch sheep. Dave never suspected. 

A little more climbing and we arrived back at our hotel for the night. Good thing - less than an hour later the skies opened up.

So we walked all the way from France to Finisterre. Having been to some of the world's amazing places and wonderful experiences, this hike was beyond special. We've been to other "ends of the earth" - places like Bluff in New Zealand and Cape Agulhas and the Cape of Good a Hope in South Africa. However, this was different. Our own two feet got us to this spot after hundreds of miles hiking in the footprints of knights, kings, hermits, world leaders, and regular pilgrims.

We saw history in a way that we never have before. The experience was made different by walking - hiking through the countryside and mountains leading to ancient cities, towns, villages, churches, chapels, cathedrals, and lonely pilgrim memorial crosses.  The subtle regional differences came alive and sunk in because we saw it ten or fifteen miles per day. 

We lit candles at the start and end for our friend, Triss Hyde, a Virginia judge, dad, husband, and all-around good guy who is battling terminal brain cancer. We had a few great meals, and some awful food along the way. At the end, we stood where the body of St. James supposedly came ashore on its way to Santiago, and the spot where John Adams disembarked when his ship started to leak - so he walked the Camino backwards to France in his mission to gain French support for the American Revolution. 

Finisterre is also known as the Costa da Morte, or Death Coast. In pre-Roman times, when the earth was thought to be flat, this was the furthest known land - the western tip of Europe and the place where souls supposedly ascended to heaven. Today we stood there and reflected on our own personal Camino, souls intact, healthy and happy for the experience. 

Tomorrow we will transfer back to the Santiago airport and pick up a rental car - seems like returning to the real world after not having driven a car since May 23 - what will that be like? We will relax and rest for a couple days at Parador de Siguenza, reputedly the finest parador in Spain. Paradors are hotels located in historic buildings that are owned by the government, usually castles, palaces, fortresses, convents, and monasteries. Siguenza is near Guadalajara in a converted mountaintop castle.  Then we will spend a few days touring Madrid, and return home a week from today, on July 25. 

Although our Camino ends here, and readers may want to check out, this blog is also a trip album, so I will keep it going for the next week to complete the record of our two months in Spain, for our family and our own travel record.