To the sea -- Finisterre

After a month of moving every day we arrived at the end of the earth, Finisterre, Galicia and decided to stay for a week. We found an attic room with a tiny balcony overlooking the harbor, and got to know the bakery lady, the guy from Naples who just opened a pizzaria, and the woman who cut Dave's hair. Thunder storms lit up the night sea and rain pounded, then mist, wind, and long sunny days. We walked the wild mountainous peninsula in all weather: out to the lighthouse at the tip, up to the rock peaks where Celtic people worshipped the sun as it sinks into the sea, and down to hidden coves and beaches. We followed the Corpus Christi procession on Sunday, watched a band of local drummers practicing under their flag, and heard bagpipes in the wind at the point. Before dawn we'd see the lights of the fishing boats heading out to sea, then in the afternoon see them return, anchor, and the fishermen row small boats back to shore.
This is the end of the ancient Celtic pilgrimage that followed the Milky Way west to the sun's setting, and we've found magic here we'll never forget.

Santiago in the rain

After a last wet green day walking through meadows and oak groves and little stone villages, we caught a bus late in the day into Santiago de Compostela and climbed up into a 1200 year old city of narrow streets and amazing grandeur. For dinner we slipped down a street three feet wide to eat seafood stew, bread and wine while the rain pounded down just outside.
We woke to rain, a blessing that kept most tourists away while we wandered the streets, through the breathtaking cathedral, and stopped for coffee and a freshly made eclair.
Most wonderful to us were all the community gardens, scattered among ruined walls and around every park, with folks old and young proudly tilling and planting. The morning market was packed with local Galego produce and language. An old city, but full of life!

Celtic lives

The high point of our last few days on the Camino de Santiago was an unexpected detour off the pilgrim trail, up to an ancient hill town that's been partially excavated by archaeologists. Native Celtic people lived here from 500 BC through 100 AD, and they constructed three rings of earth works around their hilltop, both for defense against Romans and other invading barbarians, and to mirror the Sun that they honored. We spent an hour wandering alone through their homes and stone hearths, and looking out on the hillsides below where they grazed sheep and farmed.
We slept in an inn nearby that night, and our Galego host said she'd been up there in the moonlight, and that it is full of spirit. We felt it too.
Many of the people who lived there 2500 years ago would have made the pilgrimage, sometime in their lives to Finisterre, the end of the known earth, where the Sun sinks into the sea. That's where we're headed next!

Rambling across Galicia

Galicia is round, green, and full of the sound of running water and birdsong. Round hills, round clouds, curving stone walls and country lanes winding over it all.

Appetizers with the cows

Expecting days of rain, we find the sun next morning, cafe and tostas on a slate table with calves gamboling. Galicia is cows, tractors, TV proud of Galician (not Spanish) accomplishments, and long quiet stone roads winding over round mountains, chestnut forests, brilliant streams and meadows, and  . . . cows. Late in the day we descend to Casa do Campo, where Raquel y Jesus have retired to his family farm, and serve us their sausage and olives, wine and cheese in company with . . . their lovely cows.