We hope on a bus to take us to our last northern Spain stop: Santiago de Compostela. It's the capital of Galicia and the destination of a medieval pilgrimage, the "Camino de Santiago" or "The Way of St. James". The pilgrimage is still very popular today with people beginning their walk as far as France. The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela is suppose to house the remains of the Apostle James.
Our hopes of a leisurely morning were dashed as the 10am bus was sold out of seats. So we bought tickets for the 6:30am bus on the Supra ALSA bus. And Supra it is! There's plenty of leg room and there's even a bus attendant! We're given earphones for the in-bus movie (Sherlock Holmes in Spanish!) and served coffee/tea and snacks. It's a 5.5 hr. ride from Oviedo to Santiago.
Diego has booked us a 4 star hotel just outside of Santiago, but the concierge can't find our reservation at first. Finally we get our room and we putter around and rest up as we wait for Diego who's arriving in the afternoon. Diego arrives and we head out to the main historical part of Santiago de Compostela. We visit the Cathedral.
We walk and walk through parks and streets and then we stop for something good to eat!
Me: "Who's that?" Diego: "Idunno" Hmmm...looks like a skinny member of ZZ top. Turns out to be Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, an important Spanish writer.
I clutch the arm of Las Dos Marias, two local woman that used to take a walk through the park every day at 2pm. Will there be a commemorative statue of me sitting on my ass in front of the computer in the future??
We stop for a late lunch at a tapas restaurant. We have chorizo in wine/sidra, fried calamari, clams, patatas bravas and solomillo (sirloin) with spanish hot pepper. [Of the peppers] "Sometimes they're spicy, sometimes they're not....sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not", says Diego.
We walk some more and finally it's pulpo time! Time to get our pulpo on! We have dinner at Restaurante-Mesón O'42 and it's a seafood feast. Lots of questions, "what's this Diego? what's this??" ...."Yes, you should try...oh this is good too!...". So a lot of food comes to the table. We have meijillones (mussels), navajas (razor clams), vieira (ray bay clams), empanada gallega (a Galician savoury pie), percebes (gooseneck barnacles), and of course, the infamous Pulpo a la Gallega (Galicia's signature dish: grilled octopus with paprika, rock salt and olive oil, sometimes with potatoes).
Percebes (gooseneck barnacles) are an expensive delicacy as the barnacles live on rocky surfaces along the coasts, which makes them difficult and sometimes dangerous to harvest. They look like little dragon claws and are maybe the size of my thumb. Diego gives us a lesson on how to eat them. You have to snap them in the middle to break the skin and then suck out the innards. The skin feels like lychee skin, but a different texture. Diego gets a squirt of percebes juice in the face from across the table as Sophia attempts her first one...haha! The taste is mild, the texture kind of like clams. Our fingers smell rank of stinky sea goodness. It takes a few washings to get the stink out.
