by Michael

We didn’t originally plan to go to Barcelona. I wanted to leave it for another trip during soccer season so I could go to a game at the Nou Camp. But after much consideration, we decided that our next destination after Spain would be Slovenia, and the best (cheapest) connection was a flight from Barcelona to Trieste, Italy followed by a bus to Slovenia. So Barcelona it is.

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by Michael

The typical tourist route through Andalusia runs south from Madrid to Toledo, then on to the triangle of Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba. The cities are easily accessible by train, bus, or car. So, for the first time on this trip — and any of our prior international trips — we rented a car. Elizabeth visited these cities back in 2006 when she was studying abroad, this is (still) my first trip to Spain. Renting a car gave us the flexibility to see parts of Andalusia that Elizabeth didn’t get to see previously, while still allowing us to see the big sights. We are pretty museum’d and cathedral’d out by this point — we only have the patience/interest for one or two sights a day and prefer to spend our time walking around town or sitting in a park. Neither of us have driven a manual transmission in the last decade (or in Elizabeth’s case, ever), so we paid a bit extra for an automatic. Both the rental and extra cost for an automatic were well worth it.

But before we could enjoy traveling by car, we had to figure out how to get out of the airport. In the US, occasionally a freeway has two or maybe three assigned numbers (Bay Area folks may be familiar with the segment of 80 East that overlaps with 580 West, which heads due North just to add to the confusion). In Spain, it seemed like the freeways had up to a dozen number designations, plus a letter for each number. We made only one wrong turn (getting out of the airport…)!

The drive to Toledo was a taste of Spanish countryside quite different from what we saw on the Camino. While we had expected parts of the Camino to be brown hills like California, even the Meseta (the “desert of the Camino”) was mostly green. We finally found the familiar golden brown landscape as we headed South out of Madrid toward Toledo.

Toledo and Around

Our first stop was the town of Toledo, which is perched high on a hill.  In the past few years, escalators have been added to assist with the walk up! Toledo was home to painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, and houses a museum with exhibits on his life and his art. The museum was intended to be in his former house, but the benefactor bought the wrong house. It was an interesting visit, especially when viewed in historical context of what other painters were doing at the time.  The museum was next door to a former synagogue that has also been turned into a museum. Most tourists visit Toledo as a day trip from Madrid, so we especially enjoyed exploring the city after the masses had left for the day (and the temperature went down).

In addition to being tourists wandering the old town and museums, Toledo gave me another chance to run. Toledo is on a hill with a river that runs more than half of the way around the city. From the city we saw the ruins of centuries-old bridges, and I saw on the map that there is a running trail along the water. So the next morning I went for a run along the river, under the new bridges and past the former bridges. It’s a great way to get a feel for the place, and I highly recommend it. Non-runners can enjoy the path as well — I crossed paths with an English fellow I met the day before as he was walking his dog along the path.

By having a car, we were also able to explore some smaller towns nearby. On our second day, we drove from Toledo to Granada, with a couple stops along the way. At our first stop, Almonacid de Toledo, we drove up to an old abandoned castle and walked around the ruins. It was a one-lane dirt road, so we were lucky no car came the other way. The view was fantastic.

We also drove up to Castillo Penas Negras near Mora, where again we had amazing views. This time there was a walkway and stairway structure, and a crane that looked like it could work but was not functioning. I guess Spain’s austerity policies applied to castle restoration.

While I enjoy traveling with just a backpack and no car, this is something we could not have done without the car. It was a nice change of pace.

Two other quick notes from the towns between Toledo and Granada:

1. We saw the Camino symbol on a wall. There are Camino routes all over Spain, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.

2. We had a nice picnic in the park for lunch. Gazpacho (Spanish cold tomato soup) is sold in cartons like milk, so it’s easy to use that as the base item for lunch.

Granada

Granada is home to the Alhambra — home to the Moorish Emirs of Al-Andalus until 1492, then to the Spanish “Reyes Catholicos” (literally Catholic Monarchs). The style is remarkably similar to what we saw in Morocco a couple months ago — though unsurprising since the Emirs of Al-Andalus were the last of the muslim rulers of Spain, whose reign began with an invasion from Morocco. It’s a bit strange thinking about Catherine of Aragon, who would later marry (and be divorced by) Henry VIII, growing up here. It’s a beautiful place, and we tried our best to get a few pictures that capture the beauty of the buildings and grounds (including a large redwood tree!).

We spent two nights in Granada, with most of our tourist activities focused on the Alhambra.

Tip for last-minute (or poor planning) travelers considering visiting the Alhambra: There can be a long line to get in and not enough tickets in a day. If you book ahead online, that can resolve the problem. Reserved tickets can  sell out as far as two weeks or more in advance. If you are traveling without planning very far into the future (like us), a certain number of tickets are reserved for same-day sales, meaning that you have to trek up to the Alhambra early in the morning to buy your tickets for timed entry that day.

The easiest way to buy tickets in the morning is with a credit card from a machine. In the morning, potential ticket buyers line up in two, separate lines. There is a line to buy tickets from a live person, where you can pay with cash. This probably works, but there is a long line. There are also machines less than 100 meters away — a fact that many people do not seem to realize.  When we showed up at the ticket line at 7am, there were already a bunch of people in the live cashier line but only one person in line for the credit card machine line (neither line officially opens until 8am). We used our American credit card and it worked fine to give us morning tickets.

Around Granada

Again enjoying the use of a car, we went for two hikes in the Sierra Nevada mountains (because we haven’t done enough walking on this trip!). No, not the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Sierra Nevada is Spanish for snowy mountains, so they have them all over. We did two hikes, one over a pass and through a valley (about 16km including approach), and the second through a canyon (called the Cahorros). The first hike felt very remote as we didn’t see anyone for the entire hike. The views were nice and it reminded it of some of our hiking in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The canyon hike was much shorter but exciting — there were segments where the trail is blocked by rock, but there are metal hand-holds attached to the rock so you can pull yourself along the path. We took a video showing how narrow the walkway was at one point. We lucked out and found a great English-language resource for hiking the Sierra Nevada mountains at www.treksierranevada.com.

Although the Sierra Nevada mountains are very close to Granada, we chose to stay for three nights in Monachil, though there are several towns like this where you can stay to visit the mountains. It was a much more relaxing atmosphere than staying in Granada.  Our hotel had a small pool (much appreciated in the hot afternoons), there was a great little bar along the river, and we were surrounded by the quiet mountains instead of city noise.  Also, we didn’t have to walk 20 minutes from our hotel in order to find free parking (yep, that was our general parking strategy to make sure that our daily budget wasn’t eaten up by parking charges).

With the exception of the narrow canyon with handles along the walkways, the area where we hiked in the Sierra Nevada mountains was not stand-out great but still offered solid hiking. On a shorter trip, we might have skipped it. But having been gone for so long, this was our chance to get out on our own.  It’s also worth noting that it was really hot while we were in Monachil (highs in the mid-90s each day).  The only way that we could bear to do any hiking was to get up early each morning so that we’d be done hiking no later than 1pm.  However, we noticed that most Spaniards did not do the same, and it seemed that they were all heading out to hike as we were back to town.

[We’re making an attempt to finally get caught up on getting our blog posts up.  This post describes our visit to Toledo, Granada, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains on June 22-25, 2016.]

By Michael

At a Glance:

Day 31: Santiago to Negreira (20km)

Day 32: Negreira to Olveiroa (33km)

Day 33: Olvieroa to Muxia (32km)

Day 34: Muxia to Finisterre (35km)

*Distances are approximate.  The Brierley Camino guide that we used does not cover the Camino Finisterre, so we primarily relied on internet sources and a free tourist map that we received at our albergue in Negreira. To add to the confusion, many of the towns have two spellings — the Spanish and Galician versions.  For instance, Finisterre (Spanish) is referred to locally as Fisterra (Galician) and Mucia (Spanish) is Muxia (Galician).

Daily Highlights:

Camino de Santiago Day 31/Camino de Finesterre Day 1:

After a month of walking, we made it to Santiago yesterday. So what do we do next? More walking!

We started the Camino de Finisterre today — the way to the “end of the land.” Historically, many pilgrims would continue on past Santiago until they reached the coastline. We are actually going in a round-about way — stopping first in Muxia (a coastal village further north) and then to Finisterre. The trails run together for two days, then split early on day three, with a fourth day connecting the two destinations.

Since we had worked so hard to get to Santiago (and stayed up for soccer last night), we slept in. We didn’t leave our hotel until 8:00 a.m.!!!

Today, thankfully, was the short day. There seems to be limited accommodation west of Santiago, so there are not lots of choices for where to stay. We hiked roughly 20 km, though the same type of terrain we saw in most of Galicia. At one point we put our feet in the river (second time!), and enjoyed a really excellent view of a cute town and bridge.  There were far fewer pilgrims on the trail today (although there was some kind of community walk headed in the opposite direction as us).

When we arrived in Negreira, we booked our beds in Albergue Lua (getting extended instructions from our host regarding what to expect the next few days, including a much welcomed map), and after a trip to the supermarket stopped at an “English Pub,” where we enjoyed cider and O’Hara’s beer (it’s like Guinness but not as good).

As we drank, a bunch of bicycles passed us along the street. It turns out that there was a triathlon going on while we were there. It was 20k of bicycling and 5k running, plus however long the swim was. As the bicycling was finishing up, we walked over to the arch at the other end of town, where we saw the athletes finish their runs and get their final time. They had the whole Camino blocked! It’s a good thing that we got where we wanted to be before the race started.

Elizabeth is feeling sick again.  Her cough has finally started to get better and now she’s sneezing again and afraid the cycle has started over again.

Camino de Santiago day 32/Camino de Finisterre day 2:

We woke up at a more normal time and got on the trail before 7:00 this morning for the longest day of the Camino Finisterre. It was a lot more of the same type of terrain, but a little bit less well-marked. At one point a bicyclist passed me and told me that Elizabeth was behind by at least a kilometer. This was surprising since she had been ahead of me and I had hurried to catch up but couldn’t get her in sight (I had stopped briefly to put on my rain jacket, which to me explained the gap). I turned around and met her back on the road, learning that she had taken a wrong turn and had sought out the bicyclist to send the message up ahead.

It rained a little during the day; not much, but it felt like hours of walking through a cloud. More than anything, it was a tough day because it was about getting back into the habit of walking a longer day. Apparently they have a word for this light rain in Gallego (the Galician language) that literally translates as “the rain that gets dumb people wet” — because it seems like you shouldn’t need a rain jacket, but before you realize it you’re soaked (also really, with such rain, why not go inside?).

We spent the night at the municipal albergue in Olveiroa, another super small town that seems to only exist for the Camino. We enjoyed talking with a Korean couple that lives in Hawaii while we cooked our lunch at the albergue (they stayed at our albergue last night too). We’re starting to notice that most of the people walking the Camino de Finisterre also started in St. Jean like we did; these are not the people that started at the 100km mark in Sarria (perhaps because we’re the only ones that can spare another 3 or 4 days? or are crazy enough to keep walking?).

Camino de Santiago day 33/Camino Finisterre day 3:

We got an earlier than ordinary start on our way to Muxia this morning. We were greeted with rain. The rain was not as hard as it was a couple weeks ago before Leon, but it lasted longer and just kept raining for the first half of our hike today. In a 30 km day, that’s a long time to walk in the rain.

Fortunately the rain softened and then ended after our morning break in Dumbria (about 10km into the day), and most of our day was under cloud-cover. Shortly after the sun came out we heard sea gulls and found our first view of the ocean! In another few km we were in Muxia, a small village out on the cape that borders a large bay. 

Unlike most of our days on the Camino, where we are done walking once we get to the albergue, in Muxia we had another couple km to go before we could call it a day.  We left our stuff at the albergue and then walked a final km out to the end of the peninsula.

According to legend, Saint James came to Muxia to evangelize and the Virgin Mary arrived in a stone boat to encourage him to keep on spreading the word. There is a church at the end of the peninsula marking the site, and although it was not open when we arrived, there were a couple windows designed to let tourists see in. We spent some time sitting on the rocks along the water and were about to head back to our albergue when we saw a familiar sight — one of the Canadian couples that we had seen off and on throughout the Camino (from our second night to the day that we passed through Villafranca).  They had finished the Camino and had bussed out to Finisterre and Muxia for the day and just happened to be there as we were walking back!

I rounded out the night by going out to a bar to watch part of the Italy vs Belgium soccer match. Or so I thought. It turns out that the Euro 2016 soccer tournament is on one channel in Spain, and that channel decided to show only one game per day. Because Spain played in an earlier game, Italy/Belgium was not broadcast.

[Elizabeth’s note: As noted above, we have seen far fewer pilgrims since leaving Santiago.  This was especially evident today, since we split from the trail headed directly toward Finisterre after about 5km.  After the split, we only saw a single group of pilgrims just before arriving in Muxia.  Similarly, there are only about a dozen pilgrims staying in the municipal albergue here.  The albergue itself is a huge, modern building that is weirdly empty (partly by design as there are not many beds but probably 3 chairs per bed spread throughout the facility). One treat at the municipal albergue is that we received another certificate stating that we have walked to Muxia — it’s in Gallego instead of Spanish!]

Camino de Santiago day 34/Camino de Finisterre day 4

Last day on the Camino!

Finisterre literally means “end of the land.” It is believed that pilgrimage to Finesterre is much older than the Camino, as the celtic peoples of pre-Christian Galicia understood it as the westernmost point in Europe (it isn’t — there are places in Ireland and Portugal further West).

Before we started the day — actually during our lunch break yesterday — we booked an apartment to stay in for a few days after we finish the Camino. Since we had a few requirements (internet, washing machine) we ended up booking a place in Muxia. But we still wanted to finish the Camino at Finisterre, so we left our albergue in Muxia with our bags, walked past our apartment for tonight, and continued on to Finisterre, planning to to take a taxi back to Muxia.

Today’s path starting along the coast by a beautiful beach with a view of what appeared to be a  half-built luxury hotel. Then the trail turned inland and climbed a mountain. We could see serious clouds up ahead and were determined to make it to the top before the bad weather hit.

We made it over the top and part way down the other side before we had to get out our rain gear, and even then it never rained too hard. The terrain was lush and often forested, and we made our way to the single cafe on today’s route (at about the 14km mark) before making our way into the town of Finisterre. As with yesterday, reaching town did not mean that we were done walking — there was another 3 km to the lighthouse at the end of the land.

As we entered Finisterre, it began to rain so we stopped for hot chocolate. We figured out where we would later go for our “Finisterrana” — our certificate of making it to Finisterre — and I discovered a restaurant serving real curry by smell (I’m quite proud of that) that we decided would be our treat once we returned from the lighthouse.

Then we headed out to the lighthouse at the end of the land. Since we weren’t staying in the town of Finisterre, we carried our full backpacks. On the way up, we ran into a couple from Washington state who we had walked with over a week ago as we headed into Rabanal (they had bussed to Finisterre), and talked to them during our final kilometers. And then we reached the end.

I had felt incredibly excited when I reached Santiago; I was emotional at Finisterre. There was a bagpiper next to the lighthouse and I had to hold back a few tears as I realized this was coming to an end, with a fitting soundtrack. It’s not that I wasn’t ready to finish — my feet definitely were ready to be done — but it’s a bit overwhelming, and being up on cliffs — which really do feel like the end of the world — makes it more powerful.

Just past the lighthouse it became much more windy. We took a couple pictures and watched a few people ceremonially burn possessions (we had nothing sufficiently flammable, dry, and disposable to burn). As we started walking back, we took pictures for a German couple. While there are many people out at the point, few have their full backpacks. Most took a vehicle at least to the nearby town, if not to the point itself. They noticed our backpacks and asked how far we had walked and congratulated us when they heard it was from France. That felt good.

Before heading back to Muxia we had our curry lunch (pretty good actually), picked up our Finisterana, and met up with Kat from Australia (who’d chosen to give her feet a break and drove to Finisterre for a few days relaxation). Cabbing back to Muxia was interesting both because we haven’t been in a motorized vehicle since St. Jean over a month ago and because although we took a different route than we walked, we covered today’s walk in about 30 minutes (prompting Elizabeth to get carsick).

We’ll be spending the next couple of days letting our bodies have a chance to rest in a wonderful apartment overlooking the ocean in Muxia.  Rain is forecast for the rest of the week, so I expect that we’ll spend much of the day inside admiring the view.

And now to relax and sleep in past 5:45am!