Walk This Way

We left Saarbrucken, not via Luxembourg City but out of the smaller of Frankfurt’s two airports, Frankfurt Hahn.  Took a mini-bus from Saarbrucken through acres of mustard fields.  Of course, Frankfurt was surrounded by mustard.

We started our Iberian Peninsula trip at the finish line-Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.  It is the famous endpoint city of millions of pilgrims since the 814 AD. The Camino de Santiago or the Way of Saint James http://santiago-compostela.net/ is a network of hiking trails covering hundreds of miles through Portugal, Spain and France.  The goal for pilgrims, once the city is reached is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of apostle Saint James are kept.  Once inside the traveler gives the statue of St. James a sweaty hug from behind.  We entered the church walked up the altar steps allowing access to St. James from behind, then walked down the other side.  Not knowing the tradition, we gave him a pat on the back “good job Jimmy, time to hit the showers.”

The streets are packed with pilgrims, almost all with walking sticks clanging the cobblestone sidewalks (Compostela may mean walking sticks in Spanish, but our Spanish isn’t as good as we had hoped, as everyone responded to our Spanish with perfect English.  Our Spanish was better understood in Portugal). 

Anyone with a backpack and/or walking sticks was warmly greeted with a “bien camino”.  We got a few.  People with Chopsticks got a “bien comido”. 

The Cathedral was spectacular as was the town.  

There was a charming old town with staggeringly beautiful buildings, 

fresh meat-fish-vegetable-fruit-flower market,

plus a nice "new" town as well.

asked the hard questions. 

We enjoyed local cuisine (avoiding the fresh fish) particularly the tortillas, which are a kind of baked omelette, but the one with tuna was weird. The area is also famous for it’s breast shaped cheese (Tetilla). We bought one and nursed it for a few days.

Our religious themed visit was capped by staying at a former convent.  “Bien hermana”.

The convent was located on the USC campus (Fight on Pilgrims?), this USC had a very nice chemistry building. 

The convent was close to one of the camino paths so we decided to earn our "bien camino" by walking a bit on the path south towards Porto, Portugal.  After about 200 meters, a Toto-like dog randomly darted in front of us and urged us to follow which we did for another couple 100 meters.  Not sure if the dog made it to Porto but we did, by bus the next day.

camino  marker with shell, the symbol of the camino