Santiago de Compostela - 12 December until 16 December

The Cathedral - this facade is on the Spanish Euro coins.

Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful medieval town with the very famous cathedral at it's centre. The Cathedral contains the remains of Saint James (Santiago), and is one of the main pilgrimage sites for Christians (third in line to Rome and Jerusalem).

The Cathedral itself has an incredibly ornate facade, but inside it is fairly plain - until the final third or so. Then it is a riot of gilded carved wood work. Like most of the churches we have been in, we couldn't take photos, so here are a couple from the Internet and two photos of postcards.

The rest of the town is a mix of churches, monasteries, nunneries, museums and university buildings, plus the expected range of restaurants and tourist shops. We loved it, it was everything you would want in an historic old town. Although our days were shortened somewhat, as we had to stay up so Jane could call Australia to sort out her indemnity insurance (boo!), so we had some fairly late starts.

The central altar - to get an idea of the scale, that statue of Jesus is about life size.  You can get inside the pulpit - I imagine there is a special circle of hell for the person who carved their name into it.

The two organs on either side of the nave.

The colonnade of the building on the other side of the square.

The Cathedral at night.

A building, probably old, and quite likely used for churchy stuff. 

We went to this restaurant, which did an average paella (not a northern dish, apparently) but had an amazing nativity scene....

....which was fairly detailed. Eeeewwwww.

We went for a walk in park. Travellers tip from Morgan - if you don't want to worry about getting mugged, do what I do - and dress like a homeless person.

In a complete contrast, we also visited the Galacian City of Culture. Not finished yet, and so new its Wikipedia page is really small (curses). It was designed by Peter Eisenmann to reflect the topography of the hills and of the old town centre, and to reference the scallop shells that pilgrims traditionally carry (I don't now why, maybe they like scallops? Who doesn't - scallops are yummy).

I described it to Jane as Architecture with a capital 'A'. Once it actually has some people in it, it will be incredible.

I assume this is an enormous skateboard ramp.

Even the cafe was cool.

Libraries rock!

We went to a exhibition of typewriters! 

The pocket type writer - how does it work? No idea. Cute though.

Wiggly.

A typewriter with Japanese characters, all umpty-billion of them.

Weirdest thing ever? They got Michael Winslow (the man of 10, 000 voices) to record the sound effects of the typewriters. I suppose he has had some slow days now the Police Academy movies are finished.

So thumbs up to Santiago.  Now south to Portugal.

Candas - 9 December - 12 December

What a spot! That's the van pretty much in the middle of the photo.

We stopped at this wee town on the northern coast for a couple of days. We didn't do much, mainly sitting and wandering - however the campsite was amazing, and the town itself was very pretty.

However, not only does no-one speak English (the campground owner did, thankfully) - but we have been getting 'the blank stare' in response to our rubbish Spanish. I haven't felt quite this 'foriegn' since we visited some of the out of the way places in Japan. Still, great fun.

The Town Hall

There was a sculpture park on the headland above the town. Having a look at it was our main bit of activity in the three days we were in Candas. Good times.

CANON!

They like their viaduct/bridge type roads in Spain. This one was particularly impressive.

San Sebastian- 5th till 9th December

After leaving San Sebastian we drove west to rendezvous with my parents, Pete and Barb, in Santander. We stayed in a lovely apartment near the restaurant/bar district.  Santander doesn't feature too frequently in the travel books but it's actually a fun, bustling town set beside some excellent beaches.

We spent a lovely few days eating, drinking and playing cards.  Pete had never been to Spain before so it was a lot of fun introducing him to the Spanish way of eating.  We found some great tapas bars, particularly our local where the incredibly friendly and enthusiastic waiter greeted us warmly and at length every day- entirely in Spanish.  The patatas vinegrette was a thing of beauty and I've drastically increased my number of spanish words.

On our way out - Barb has a new scarf and I have a pretty new yellow dress! Morgan, well...he tries.

This is Pete's happy face.  Honest.

One of the always crowded bars.  It's really lovely to see all the children and families out all together.   It makes for a great atmosphere.

Watch out, Pete has found a new drink of choice.  "Calimocho" is a surprisingly delicious mix of coke and red wine, served with ice and a slice of lemon.

Razor clams.  Interestingly they were listed on an english menu as "Knives".  I was pretty sure I knew what we'd be getting when I ordered them.

Clams in white beans.  Nom nom.

Morgan doing the moonwalk. 

While most of our time was spent relaxing we did manage to get off our bottoms to visit the cathedral and go for a great walk along the beach to the Palacio Real de la Magdalena.

Iglesia del Cristo Catedral

The beach just around the corner from where we were staying - it was lovely and would be magnificent in summer.

A steely eyed glare - somewhere, someone is up to something, and Morgan does not approve.

One wonders how you draw a naked stick figure.

Me in front of the Royal Palace

We finished up with a very fancy degustation at a Michelin starred restaurant.  We had a fabulous meal, very decadent and indulgent...but the subsequent food poisoning wasn't the highlight of the trip!  I'll only include the "before" photos....

Never been served bread from a chest of drawers before.

Working hard to keep up with the wine they kept bringing out.

Time to get back on the road.  We had a fabulous few days with my parents and the best thing is knowing that we'll see them again in only two weeks.  Santander is definitely worth a visit too- great people and great food.