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Published: November 16th 2010
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Monday 25th October to Sunday 31st October 2010
Monday 25th Oct 2010
Santiago de Compostela - Spain.
Tom up at 6am and off for a bicycle ride. Then into town after brekkie. Went thru the St James Cathedral Museum. www.catedralesantiago.es . Watched a video in Spanish about reconstruction - it helped our understanding. Some very old tapestries - all in all quite good and what we learned at the Guggenheim was applicable to tapestry and their style/what they depicted.
Then off to the markets - had wine, beer, bread rolls with prosciutto and cheese on 2 and salami and cheese on 2 - €4.40 the lot. Then into markets - mostly closed but still found a few open so bought fresh veggies and meat for dinner and fruit. Tried to get fresh milk from a vending machine, put in €1 and got 2 empty bottles - put one into filling station and that was it - couldn't make it work for us - lost the euro but it was fun trying.
Back home.
Tuesday 26th Oct 2010
Tom up at 6 and rode around same crit for 1 hour.
Back to van and packed up and headed for Viana
do Castelo - Portugal. Had some fun with Tom Tom once in mountains of Portugal. The signal dropped out at a crucial turn off at some roads. Also Gaye missed the photo of sign of Portugal border - it was in the trees beside a 120kph express way sign - need to complain to Portugal Tourism about it
Into town and walked around. Had lunch at a restaurant recommended by the guy in Vodafone - owned by people who had lived in Bankstown - daughter talked to us for a while - small world.
Then to campsite, called ‘Inatel’- off with bikes and scooter - used scooter to go to amenities block - big site and empty as it out of season. Showers in the mens were great, but the showers in the ladies were cold, so Gaye showered in motorhome. No dinner, to full from the late lunch.
Wednesday 27th Oct 2010
We both went for a 2 hour bicycle ride this morning to have a look around the area near to the camp site.
We are near the beach, similar to Port Macquarie, but bigger, with a river running down to ocean.
Back to van to have
25.10.10 Santiago de Compostela Cathedral
Front view of St James Cathedral from the Plaza showers and lunch. Lazy day for us - rested for the afternoon, went to local shops for a few groceries. Tom created a yummy soup for dinner.
Thursday 28th Oct 2010
Caught the bus into town to buy an Ipod docking station for van, some shopping. Took funicular (cable car)up to see the Church of Saint Lucia. Looked inside and around the grounds, then descended all the steps to the city.
It was 2pm and we just missed the #3 bus back to campsite. No-one was able to help us in telling when the next bus will be. Apparently it only runs every 3 hours. After 3pm came and went, we found someone from the administration of the bus depot who found out which bus to take back.
Around midnight, we had a storm, and it rained, until the morning. Van felt like it would blow over onto its side.
Friday 29th Oct 2010
Woke to thunder, lightning and rain. It looked like the whole campsite was under water. Tom’s crocks had floated away , eventually Gaye saw them on the other side of the van about 10 metres away. Went and paid for the 3 nights -
25.10.10 Santiago de Compostela Streets
View of the streets from top of the St James Cathedral only €17.67 - they had given us a discount for having a camping card.
Headed out about 10.45am. The Tom Tom took us on some very weird backstreets on the way to Oporto. We were on the tollway, but only about a week ago they introduced electronic tags, so we were not able to stay on the tollway and took the N13 - the only trouble the Tom Tom takes us through the middle of the towns as it is the shortest route, but the streets are narrow, congested and it is a bit of a hairy tip.
We programmed it in to take us to a campsite 3km from city centre. When we got there the cupboard was bare- not open - the streets were narrow, the traffic was bedlam. We went to a petrol station just up the road and they said that it was permanently closed. So headed off to another one about 5km away and near the beach
Missed the turnoff, so off onto paved/cobblestone narrow back roads - they are so narrow they are controlled by traffic lights, the same lights as the road work sites in Australia - fun fun fun LOL.
Found the campsite and started to set up van, and Tom remembered we needed to fill up the water reservoir. But the motor in the van wouldn’t start. The lady in the office spoke some English and she helped organize a local mechanic to come out to have a look. It seems like it is the immobilizer. He will come back on Tuesday and disable it. Looks like we are here for a few more days than expected.
The storms have followed us here. Battened down the hatches. The afternoon cleared up for a while so we went for a 2 hour walk along the beach.
Had dinner in the campsite restaurant. It was a sandwich layered with steak, bacon, cheese, bacon, cheese, bacon, layered with an egg on top and cheese melted on top of that with a baked bean type of sauce poured over it. It was in a square shaped dish with chips around it. It is the local dish for here as others local campers came in an ordered it as well. It was OK in taste but Gaye wouldn’t order it again.
Storm came back during the night. Thought we would get blown away.
Saturday 30th Oct 2010
Still raining, so Tom off to Laundromat to do washing and drying, abut 5kms away - he got a taxi there and back. Gaye doing Italian study.
Another afternoon walk - we beat the weather. Storm came back with avengence. 8pm had dinner rocking and rolling to wind and rain.
Sunday 31st Oct 2010
Weather worse. Tom evenually went for a wet and very windy ride - wore helmet cover and it worked really well with respect to rain, but it blew off at some point so it’s gone - great idea but poorly executed - back to his red Seaco cap under helmet. It was so windy a couple of times, Tom had to stop to turn as too dangerous to ride a tight turn on cycle way.
So Sunday was indoors all day - fell asleep due to boredom. Tom cooked a rice tuna pasta - It was very delicious. Then ended up playing UNO saying the numbers in Italian for practice, then played Scrabble next thing it was 11.30pm - off to bed.
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