Europe 4: Santiago de Compostela, Ávila

On July 1, 2022, we had our longest driving day of the trip, as we worked our way back to Parla, by way of Santiago de Compostela and Ávila.

As we drove, we saw and smelled eucalyptus trees, which reminded me of my childhood in Kensington, California.

There were "tree tunnels" at some points, which are always pretty.

Santiago de Compostela

After about an hour, we reached our first destination that day, Santiago de Compostela, which is the capital of Galicia. 

The van had our luggage in it, so we hid our bags under Sienna's tortilla blanket, because who would want to steal a huge tortilla?

We had to walk a ways from the parking spot, but that actually seemed appropriate, given where we were going.

After a bit of an uphill walk, we arrived at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Every year, about 200,000 people make a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago (or "Way of St. James"), to arrive here. Some walk a few days, others walk for several months. Some people do this as a spiritual journey, either alone or in a group; others as a fun hike.

This map shows the network of paths that lead to this Cathedral from all around Europe. Two-thirds of the walkers come from France (on the "French Way"), but other routes are becoming more popular as well.

Ways of St. James
(By Manfred Zentgraf, Volkach, Germany, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=748316)

Tradition holds that the apostle (St.) James of Zebedee was martyred by beheading, and that the relics (remains) of St. James were discovered in the 9th century and buried here. The Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) became a major pilgrimage route from the 10th century and onwards.

One of the oldest starting points was Oviedo (along the northern coast of Spain in the above map). You may recall that I took a picture there of one of the scallop shells that marks and represents the path. People used to obtain a scallop shell from the coast after making the pilgrimage, and then used it as a token to show that they had been there. Nowadays people often display a scallop shell on their backpack or wherever during the pilgrimage itself, and markers such as this are embedded in roads or walls along the way.

In 1492, during the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, Pope Alexander II officially declared Camino de Santiago to be one of "three great pilgrimages of Christendom," along with Rome and Jerusalem. So it's a pretty big deal.

In 2022, Sienna I of Utah and Isabel the Great of Parla arrived at the Cathedral and officially declared that it was pretty cool.

To the left of the square is a 5-star hotel where a group of people were doing a protest over something, beating on plastic bucket drums and blowing whistles to get attention. They eventually stopped and went away.

We had to scrounge up some masks in order to go into the Cathedral itself.

The cathedral was beautiful inside. Apparently on Fridays they burn incense in the "censer", which makes the room just a bit smoky. That provided for some dramatic sunbeams.

The pipe organ has some pipes that stick out horizontally like trumpets.

Here you can see the censer hanging down from a chain, and the incredible detail in the alterpiece.

On the back side of the cathedral, I saw a group of recently-arrived young pilgrims in yellow T-shirts holding up signs that said "Free hugs!" (some in English, and some in Spanish, "Abrasos gratis").

In this short video, you can hear the church bell ringing, and you see a man get a free hug from one of the youth.

On the steps in front of the side entrance to the church, Sienna shows the ring she made in A Coruña.

Back around the front of the cathedral, we saw many pilgrims arriving from their long journey. Linette said, "¡Bienvenidos!" to some of them, and they were happy for the welcome. Everyone was so excited!

Here you can see Linette and Sienna walking by the backpackers.

As we walked back towards the car, we got ahead of part of our group, so I dramatically said to Sienna and Isabel, "We will never know what is down that alley."

But since we had a minute, I ran down there and found out!

It turned out to be a beautiful garden area!

And a little old man was hoeing the garden back there. And there was a bridge and a stream. So cute.

At that point, we got back in the van and I drove for a couple of hours. Linette and I both got international driver's licenses at AAA to allow us to drive in Europe for the next 12 months. What it certifies is that you paid someone $35 (No training was involved). We had each had a turn driving in Spain so far, with lots of advice as we went to help avoid things like the electronic speeding tickets at certain advertised points.

We stopped for gas, lunch and ice cream bars and then got back on the road, this time with Nico at the wheel.

As we continued driving, we saw churches and ruins that I thought were interesting.

About 6:30pm, we arrived at Ávila, a small city with great medieval walls, about an hour northwest of Madrid.

Ávila was inhabited in pre-Roman times (5th century B.C.) by some people who called it "Obila" ("High Mountain") and built a strong fortress there. After the Romans conquered it, they turned it into a rectangular town with two main roads that intersected into a "forum" in the center.

In the first century A.D., Secundus brought the gospel to Ávila and became its first bishop. Ávila commemorates St. Segundo (now its patron saint) on May 2nd every year.

After the fall of Rome, Ávila became a stronghold for the Visigoths, then conquered by the Moors, and then repeatedly attacked by northern Christian kingdoms, becoming an unpopulated no man's land. Finally, in 1088, after the reconquest by Raymond of Burgundy, the town was repopulated, and the stone walls were constructed that still stand today. So these walls are almost 1000 years old.

There are 9 gates built into the walls around the old city.

Through the first gate we went through, we found the Convent of Santa Teresa, supposedly built on the site where Santa Teresa was born in the 17th century.

It was cool to see the ancient walls and other buildings blend so well together.

Mari found this interesting door knocker.

The main square had cool arches all around.

We looked in some of the shops as we walked along.

One of the shops there had these cute little things. I don't know what they are.

One of the local specialties was "Yemas de Santa Teresa", a simple traditional Spanish dessert made of egg yolks and sugar with a powdered sugar coating. ("Yemas" means "yolks").

I noticed that in much of Europe (at least the older areas that we visited), the streets are done in brick or other stone work, rather than concrete or asphalt. It seems like that would let some of the water drain without having to go to the gutters, and it looked wonderful.

At that point, we headed to a place where we could climb up onto the city walls.

There was a little museum as we entered where we learned a little of the history of the ancient city.

Then up we went.

The walls have battlements all around.

There are 88 towers, a few of which were open to us to explore.

From up there, you can look down on the path that follows the main part of the wall.

Arches connected some sections of the wall.

These houses are all enclosed inside the city walls.

From this tower, we had a great view of the wall and several of its other semicircular towers.

They had those little windows that archers could use to shoot in various directions with minimal exposure.

Trees provided shade for part of the wall.

I asked Nico how the red ceramic shingles stayed on. He explained that they put cement under each one to glue it on. Then we walked by this spot, and I could see what he was talking about.

Here is the east side of the walls from the corner tower.

From there, I could get close-ups of everyone from the "outside" of the wall.

And here are these two cuties.

They had some displays with cutouts for your hands and silhouettes of various weapons that were used back in the day.

Here is one last look back along the east wall.

The walkable part of the wall ended at the main cathedral and its flying buttresses.

Inside the last room of the wall trail was a set of swords.

There was also a model of the cathedral, so we could see what it looks like from various angles.

I could see that the cathedral had stained glass windows that are probably cool, but we didn't have a chance to go in.

We decided to eat early that evening (9 p.m.). Sienna got the huge bread soup.

I got the legendary "chuletón de Ávila", the city's most iconic dish.

So did Isabel.

And so did Nico.

Nobody went hungry that night.

While we were eating, a jazz band was playing nearby, which added some fun atmosphere.

After dinner, I went to go see if the ice cream place had closed. Indeed it had not.

The walls looked cool lit up as the sun set.

Sometimes you just have to sit at the base of a 1000-year-old city wall and eat ice cream.

The grown-ups (Nico, Mari and Linette) also got ice cream.

Here's another statue of St. Teresa de Ávila, who was from here.

The puerta del Alcazar (gate of the fortress) looked awesome, especially with the moon just peeking through the arch.

I walked through one of the gates while we were waiting for someone and took a quick look around. Afterwards, Mari asked what I had seen.

"Yo vi una fuente bonita..." (I saw a pretty fountain), I slowly began, as Mari nodded; "...y un oso feo," (...and an ugly bear), I concluded, as Mari looked surprised.

So I showed her the picture of the pretty fountain...

...and the ugly bear. When she saw the picture, she nodded and said, "¡Si!" as if to say, "Fair enough!" (It could be a boar. Not sure).

The sunset afterglow looked nice as we walked along the outside of the walls on the way back to the car.

The moon hung just above the walls.

Here are Mari and Linette talking as they walked in the pleasant evening under the ancient walls.

I thought Ávila was beautiful.

I asked Nico to drive over to a viewpoint so we could see the city walls at night from there. It was hard to get a sharp picture at night, but I got a few.

We got led astray by our GPS app on the way home, but eventually made it back to the apartment in Parla.

What a week!

Here are two maps showing the places we went on our tour of northern Spain.

• We hit Toledo (the southernmost yellow star) before we started the northern route.
• Segovia is just up from Madrid.
• We stopped in Campille (up towards Valladolid).
• Then up to León and Oviedo.
• Then over to Ruta del Cares in Picos de Europa for the day, and back to Oviedo.

Continuing on the map below,

• From Oviedo over to As Catedrals beach (Spanish: Playa de Las Catedrales).
• Then on to A Coruña for two nights.
• Then down to Santiago de Compostela.
• Then across and down to Ávila.
• Then finally back to Parla.

You can see in the map that the area we were in tends to be green, and it was so beautiful! We drove about 20 hours total, and we were so thankful to the friends of the family who lent us the minivan for the trip.

In the next episode, Linette and I take Sienna and Isabel to Italy, and Isabel takes a side trip to Belgium for a test.