Anyway, last week I took way too many buses and 1 train to see a bit more of the Iberian Peninsula before I head over to Barcelona in a couple of days to meet my parents!!!! On this trip I made it to Santiago de Compostela, Fisterra, Porto and Lisbon. I started out the journey alone, but met a few really great people at the hostels I stayed at along the way! I was glad that I did because I'm finding more and more that I get really bored and unmotivated to do anything at all if I'm just by myself, even if I am in a really cool place surrounded by a lot of cool things!
I'll give you all a quick summary of the places and then post some pics, as per usual:
Santiago de Compostela: Santiago's a small town with a huge reputation, located up North in the region of Spain called Galicia (right on top of Portugal). It's the end of a long journey taken by many pilgrims who start their journey near the Spain/France boarder and essentially walk across the entire country along the path called el Camino de Santiago. Many people do it for spiritual and/or religious reasons, but it's also popular with a lot of adventure travelers just because it is a really arduous journey and you get to see a ton of really great landscape.
Galicia itself is absolutely gorgeous -- all of its vegetation is clearly on steroids. There are lots of trees, plants, shrubs, etc all really green and all very dense. Unfortunately, the reason behind its aforementioned greenness is because is RAINS LIKE CRAZY there. I never went anywhere without my raincoat and had to hang up my clothes every night so they could dry, but I figure I probably deserve a little torrential downpour in my life, since I've been avoiding it for so long.
While in Santiago, I also went to an even smaller town nearby called Fisterra. In some places I saw it written as "Finisterra", which I actually like better because the name then explains what it essentially is: el "Fin de Tierra" or the "End of Earth". It's the western-most point in all of Europe and, for some pilgrims, the true end of the Camino. There's not really a whole lot to do there, but I walked from the town center where the bus dropped me off out to the lighthouse that marks the "true" end of the Camino. I thought it was pretty cool and the sun even made a rare (temporary) appearance so that I could take some decent pictures!
Porto: Porto's located in Northern Portugal right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and next to the Douro River. It's a nice old town with interesting old architecture and lots of bodegas that produce port wine. My new German friend Manuela and I took a tour at one of the bodegas, partially for the free samples at the end, partially to avoid becoming human sponges by absorbing all of the Porto rainfall. Unfortunately for me, we went later on in the afternoon and there was only one more tour happening that day -- presented in German. Fortunately, Manuela obligingly translated everything for me and I still got to see the wine cellars and try some Sandeman port at the end of our journey.
After a couple of rainy days in Porto, it was time to go further south to Lisbon....
Lisbon is Portugal's capital and really old a overall a pretty great city. Lots of things like castles (okay I actually just visited the one), more interesting architecture, and LOTS of azulejos, or decorative blue tiling found on many walls throughout the city. I really enjoyed just walking around the streets randomly looking at things that I happened upon and then ducking in a cafe for something cool to drink when I got too unbearably hot (which happened to happen a lot, especially in the afternoons... I was constantly sweating). It is also really hilly there, so I walked up and down a lot and got some great views of the city and the water. Interestingly, what with the city being close to water, its use of trams/trolleys as public transport aforementioned hilliness and a certain bridge, it reminded me some of San Francisco... I'll let you guys be the judge though, so make sure to check out the pics!
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| Galicia y Portugal |
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