Dear All!
Hello, greetings from Spain, and Happy New Year 2025! Well, at least as I’m writing this, it’s the New Year – it will take me a while to publish it still as I’m still working on my Bosnia and Jordan blogs! Such is the life of a Happy Traveller!
Over the New Year period, I met up in London with my travel friend David who I met back in Australia over the summer, and we travelled together to beautiful Santiago de Compostela to do a bit of explorations. The idea for this trip began when I was in Fatima in Portugal last February – I had felt so touched by being in such a holy place and a site of pilgrimage, that I felt inspired pretty much straight away to book flights to Santiago in December. I booked them while I was sat in the main square of Cova da Iria, and while speaking of my plans with David while travelling in Australia, we agreed that it would be a great trip for the both of us while David was over in England for the Christmas holidays from his teaching job in China, and so it began!
El Camino de Santiago
I had just spent an amazing week in Jordan, followed by a wonderful Christmas in Sheffield with my family. But the travel plans didn’t stop there, as we boarded our flight bound for Santiago from Gatwick Airport on New Year’s Eve. It was a Vueling flight, Spain’s answer to EasyJet, and I was looking forward to flying with a new airline, particularly as they travel to so many destinations in Spain and beyond that I may take advantage of in the future, and also that you can earn British Airways Avios air miles with them too. Most passengers were Spanish, and it seems as though the English travellers were on the Ryanair flight from Stansted. The flight was good, and the people seriously orderly – they clapped as we landed, and completely respected the unusual Vueling rules of letting passengers exit the plane in groups of five rows at a time. I’m not sure that this made exiting any faster, if anything it made it slower, but I was very admiring of the orderly nature of it all. Spanish people I think are by nature conservative and law-abiding, community often prevails over the individual, and it was nice to
Me and David, Torre de Hercules
La Corunasee a taster of this on the aeroplane.
After proceeding through immigration and getting our passports stamped, we took the airport bus to the central bus and train station area, from where it was a short 15-minute walk to our fantastic AirBnB accommodation to the west of the Old Town. We stopped for some self-catering supplies at a 24/7 supermarket on the way which we really appreciated, as it seemed many places were closing early for New Year’s Eve and wouldn’t open again until at least the 2nd. Unfortunately we had arrived a bit earlier than I had let our host know, and he was a bit delayed in meeting us anyway. We had an hour to wait before checking in, but fortunately found a wonderful little bar nearby where we enjoyed our first cerveza con tapas on this lovely little trip. It was a great insight into how the rest of the trip would unfold, involving quite a few more beers and some seriously excellent food! The accommodation was also brilliant – spacious, economical, quiet and yet still walkable from the places we wanted to go. It also had Netflix, so we enjoyed our first evening in Spain
Chocolate con Churros, La Corunawith some microwave ready meals, more beer, and a rather explicit Pedro Almodovar film which I thought would at least get us in the Spanish mood – it certainly had the Spanish language, but it certainly wasn’t the “12” rating which Netflix had given it…! Off to bed before midnight, the two of us not really interested in seeing the New Year in but rather more open to getting a good night’s sleep, and no fireworks or noise going off at midnight to wake us up – perfect!
The next day was our first of two full days on this trip, and we decided to do just a little bit of what makes the city of Santiago de Compostela so very famous – El Camino!! El Camino de Santiago is in fact a network of seven main routes that travel through Spain and Portugal towards the Pilgrim City of Santiago – in fact, such routes even begin as far away as Italy, Austria and even England! The most popular route is called the Camino Frances, beginning just over the Pyrenees and French border in the town of St Jean, and winds its way across the northern mountains of the
Santiago AirportIberian Peninsula for 781km, through the cities of Pamplona, Burgos and Leon, and is the route taken by around two-thirds of all pilgrims apparently. The whole thing began in the 9th century, when a tomb was found in Galicia and declared to contain the remains of St James, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Santiago is in fact the Spanish name for St James, with “Iago” actually being the name for James itself. Pilgrim routes developed during the 10th century and throughout the Medieval period, and visitor numbers have been seriously increasing over the last decade or so – in 2013 there were 200,000 pilgrims, while in 2022 there were 450,000! That’s an astonishing increase! We were visiting during the quieter time in the middle of winter, and on our leg of the journey, the final leg which is surely the most popular, we encountered only two pilgrims doing the route. All facilities such as hotels, cafes and restaurants were closed for the season, and it seems as though the summer is the busiest time. I would personally do it myself in the winter I think, I would prefer the solitude. The end goal of the pilgrim route is
The Final Leg of the Camino de Santiago
Santiago Airportof course the relics of St James the Apostle which are contained within Santiago’s huge and seriously stunning Cathedral. While we were only walking a short part of the whole route, the final 10km, we still took it as our own little pilgrimage, heading to Santiago Cathedral, and ending with evening mass there, as I shall shortly detail below.
To begin the route, we needed to take the airport bus back again, but get off three kilometres before the airport in a village called A Lavacolla. Here, the Camino extends over its final section for 10km, and shortly after getting off the bus, we easily found the start of the route by the iconic yellow shell symbol on a blue background. This symbol adorns countless way-markers presumably found all along the route, showing the remaining kilometres to Santiago. It was a beautiful sunny day, but chilly and not too warm, which we thought was perfect weather for our three-hour hike. We had brought with us food for a picnic stop or two here and there, and set off on our merry way. The first section was uphill through beautiful meadows and woods and through the little village of Vilamaior,
Santiago de Compostelawith quaint old stone houses, a few cows in the fields, and quite a number of dogs barking. We stopped at the village bus stop for a sandwich. After this we headed along a plateau ridge at the top, through more woodland, and then out onto open grassland again where there were a few very large logs conveniently placed for a nice rest and another little picnic. We then headed through another village called San Marcos, and out onto the Monte do Gozo, or Mount of Joy, so-called as it’s the first place from which pilgrims can view the spires of Santiago Cathedral. We could certainly see them in the very far distance. From here, the route went steeply downhill before entering the suburbs of Santiago. It was a bit of a shock to the system to be walking along roads with traffic again, and I can only imagine how this must feel for those doing the whole pilgrimage after walking for days through serene countryside. We walked past many cafes which were closed due to it being New Year’s Day, but eventually found one where we ordered two lovely cafes con leche. It was then a matter of hiking
Santiago de Compostelathrough the older streets of the central Old Town of Santiago, as the buildings became more traditional, and little churches and chapels would pop up here and there. Finally we headed out into the absolutely magnificent Praca do Obradoiro spreading out in front of the equally splendid Cathedral, and admired every single tower, statue and minute detail of this very impressive edifice dating back as far as the 11th century. I could only wonder at the sheer joy and amazement those early medieval pilgrims would have had encountering such beauty at the end of their journey, as well as the joy that the modern pilgrim also encounters. Even though we had only done 10km of the Camino, it still felt really special to arrive there, that we had achieved something, and that we had indeed done our own little pilgrimage.
After admiring the beauty from the outside, we then turned to the inside, visiting the Chamber and Tomb beneath the main altar to see the silver chest containing the Apostle’s relics and that of two of his own disciples. Above here you can also walk behind the main statue of St James, with many pilgrims choosing to embrace him
El Camino de Santiagofrom behind – I placed a hand on the statue’s shoulder and said my prayers. We then sat down in quiet prayer in front of the main altar, admiring the beauty and serenity of the place.
Mass was happening a couple of hours later, so we enjoyed a lovely wander in the meantime around the old streets of Santiago, stone-paved and really quite narrow in places. There is even a pillar just behind the cathedral which when lit up by the street lighting at night, amazingly casts the shadow of a pilgrim with hat, backpack and staff in his hand – I just wonder if that was planned, or if it was some incredible coincidence, or meant to be. We had a beer at a bar with very old brickwork in the basement, and then more beer and tapas at a restaurant just opposite the cathedral. Indeed, beer and tapas were to become our staples on this trip…! We returned to the Cathedral in good time to get a great position a few rows back from the main altar for the 7.30pm Pilgrims’ Mass that evening. I must admit I was a little disappointed to learn earlier that the
El Camino de Santiagovery famous swinging of the huge Botafumeiro incense burner inside the Cathedral only happens 12 times per year during special occasions such as Easter and Christmas Day. You can even arrange your own swinging of it for a fee of 450 euros! There was no swinging during our mass unfortunately, which was not a problem at all as it was really such a special mass. I felt touched and moved, and I imagine that our completion of our own little pilgrimage before this mass added to the emotions felt during the service. It was a really special end to a really special day. That evening, we returned to our accommodation a little weary, but spiritually refreshed and vitalised. We watched another Spanish film, this one about a rather dysfunctional family on the Costa Brava, which was quite interesting. It was a wonderful day indeed!
We just had one more full day on this trip the next day, and decided to spend it visiting the city of La Coruna nearby. I was really quite excited, as I’d heard about La Coruna many times, particularly as two of my friends from my waitering days as a student in London 27 years
El Camino de Santiagoago came from there. While Santiago is the capital of Galicia, and Vigo is its largest city at 300,000 people, La Coruna is also an important city and port for the province, with a population of around 250,000 people. We took a train there which was quite sedate and relaxed, and rather a far cry from the return journey, more on that below. We had five hours to spend in the city, and enjoyed our time there immensely.
David had expressed interest the day before in tasting Spain’s famous “chocolate con churros”, so the first thing we did after we got off the train was look for a place that does this. We found one quite quickly, and enjoyed these little Spanish treats with some seriously thick chocolate in a cup, watching the world go by on a pavement-side table. We then began a lovely walk around the city, which is really very walkable with lots of places to enjoy a Spanish “paseo”. After heading past the city’s port and harbour, we delved into an old part of town called La Pescaderia, happening upon a lovely square called Praza de Maria Pita lined with cosy eating establishments. It was
El Camino de Santiagopretty much time for lunch, and I think we can both agree that out of a trip with plenty of tasty food experiences, the tapas and cerveza that we had there was very much the best – we had chorizo, pastelon, lomo, tortilla, chips and a salad, washed down with a glass of Estrella Galicia each. It was just divine, and I think my favourite had to be the chips – I just love the way the Spanish make their chips – soft, and all juicy with grease! It was a serious banquet and kept us fuelled for the rest of the day!
As we had already spent three of our five hours in the city so far, we upped the pace a bit, and high-tailed it to my favourite place during our city visit – the amazing Torre de Hercules rising up from a rocky peninsula to the north of the city centre. While the 55m high tower and its spectacular location surrounded by the waves and sea of the Bay of Biscay were impressive, what amazed me the most was that the edifice dates back 2000 years to the 1st century AD! Aside from a renovation in
El Camino de Santiago1791, the tower has stood there for 20 whole centuries, and it was in fact used as a lighthouse when it was originally built. It is the oldest known extant Roman lighthouse in the world, and it was definitely the highlight for me of our time in La Coruna. You can only climb to the top of the tower on a half-hourly guided tour, and because we were pressed for time, we were unfortunately unable to do this. We did however follow a path from the lighthouse to a delightful little swimming beach called Praia das Lapas nearby, and enjoyed a couple of cafe lattes that we had previously bought from a supermarket. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves.
Now unfortunately, we hadn’t actually realised how far it was to get back to the train station, given that getting to the Torre involved gentle meandering through the city streets for a couple of hours. It was actually a three-mile walk away, and we had just over an hour before our train was due to leave! We started our quick march right away when we realised this, and fortunately nearly half way through happened on a bus stop
El Camino de Santiagowith a bus in five minutes which would take us the final mile-and-a-half. We were both quite relieved about this, having already noted that there is no Uber service in Galicia. We arrived at the train station in plenty of time for our train, which was ultimately heading for Madrid, but came upon a huge queue to get onto the platform. It seems as though security on train services is really high in Spain, and I wonder if this dates back to the awful Madrid train bombing back in 2004 which killed 200 people. There was no security on the train coming, and I also wonder if this is because that was a regional train while this was a national one. The queue was moving very slowly, and with only 20 minutes left to departure, I wondered if we wouldn’t actually make it. Fortunately the queue seemed to get faster though, and we ended up on a near-empty carriage for the half-hour journey back to Santiago. We were both quite relieved I think.
Arriving back in Santiago was lovely! After the busy-ness of the La Coruna streets, along with the hectic queue for the train journey back again, we
El Camino de Santiagoenjoyed walking through the calm, friendly streets of this lovely little city again. After getting more microwave meals from the 24/7 supermarket, as well as a bottle of Galician red wine between us for our last evening, we settled back into our accommodation again, and enjoyed the much more action-packed “Mad Max: Fury Road” on Netflix that evening. While the apartment was indeed lovely, and the host really helpful, it was actually rather cold and the “hot” water was more like “tepid” water, making for showers which were not too much fun. I think we were both looking forward to putting the heating on and having a long hot shower when we got back home again.
The next day our flight was in the afternoon, and it was a grey, rainy day. We decided, rather than get wet and miserable walking around, and given that we had already seen most of Santiago already, to have a very lazy morning in instead, checking out at 1.30pm and stopping off for lunch at the same place in which we began our Spanish food adventure on our first day of arrival. We had another beer each, a lovely tapa of tuna in
El Camino de Santiagotomato sauce and pasta, and the classic Spanish treat of toast with olive oil, tomato and jamon serrano on the top. It was a lovely way to end this lovely little New Year trip to Santiago, which I think we both enjoyed immensely! The highlight for both us was very much the comparatively short distance we walked on the final leg of the Camino de Santiago, and ending the day with the Pilgrims’ Mass at Santiago Cathedral, both on New Year’s Day which was a wonderful start to 2025 I think! Other highlights were definitely the food and the drink, and of course the fantastic company I had in a travelling life that has often very much been solo, for which I have David to thank very much for. After a good flight home and a short journey back to my place from Gatwick, David stayed over before heading back to China the following day. It was so great to see him again, and I think we worked very well together as travelling companions. Watch this space, as I do believe there will be more travel adventures together to come!
In the meantime, there is a week-long half-term holiday
El Camino de Santiago
