Category Archives: Spain & Portugal

Spain and Portugal

Since our Camino de Santiago walk was planned for mid-September 2022 we decided to bookend it with travel in Portugal and Spain. Leaving Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in September we tried to find Portugal and Spain’s flags in the terminal.

Our first city was Porto, Portugal. Our Airbnb was in the Old Town near the Douro River which allowed us to walk wherever we wanted to go.

Of course we crossed the Rio Douro to sample port wine at one of the wineries, we chose Taylor’s Winery.

Barak Obama’s visit to Porto, Portugal is commemorated at the Taylor Winery.
Porto, Portugal, Sao Bento train station
While we didn’t arrive by train, Porto’s Sao Bento Train Station is known for the elaborate tiles that show scenes from Portuguese history.

From Porto we headed to Vigo, Spain where our Camino de Santiago walk would begin. Our first night in Vigo we stayed on the Porta do Sol, right by the El Sireno monument.

Vigo, Portugal El Sireno "manfish"
El Sireno monument, our Airbnb host said it’s locally known as the “manfish”

After the Camino walk we flew from Santiago, Spain back to Portugal, this time to the country’s capitol Lisbon. Two of Lisbon’s attractions are the trolleys and the cobblestone paver sidewalks. The wavy tile pattern in Lisbon’s Rossio Square pavers is meant to invoke water, it also messed with Cindy’s balance a bit as she crossed it.

The people who labor to install the paver sidewalks are commemorated in a statue installation along the Rue 1 de Dezembro (December 1 is Portugal’s Independence Day).

While in Lisbon we did a side trip by train to Sintra, Portugal to tour the Palicio Nacional de Sintra. Sintra is known for the Palacio da Pena which looks like a fairy tale castle although other buildings in Sintra are really ornate.

Sintra, Portugal fairy tale Castle
Although it looks like a fairy tale castle this is actually a municipal office!

An ironic sight in the Palicio Nacional de Sintra is this wall with portraits of quite plain-looking people and a mirror stating “Only the illustrious deserve to be painted”, the 15th century equivalent to Instagram I guess.

Leaving Lisbon, we headed to Evora, Portugal, which a friend recommended we visit because of its well-preserved town center that still has some of its medieval walls and a Roman Temple.

Roman temple in Evora, Portugal
The Tempolo Romana de Evora.

Wandering the lanes in Evora we came across a restaurant advertising Fado music that night. Fado often has mournful tunes and lyrics infused with a sentiment of resignation, fate and melancholy. We appreciated the Fado singers even though we don’t speak Portuguese.

Our next destination was Seville, Spain. When we went to the Evora, Portugal bus terminal we were shocked that there wasn’t a good way to get there. We finally got advice to go to Faro, Portugal first then board another bus to Seville, so we were in for a full day of bus travel. Not at all what we thought would happen.

Arriving finally in Seville (a large town with 1.5 million people in the metro area) we had a couple of musts, one was the Real Alcazar one of the oldest palaces still in use in the world and another was to see Flamenco dancing.

Seville, Spain sign in front of the cathedral
Seville sign in front of the Cathedral of Seville
We saw a magnificent Flamenco dance performance in the Museo del Baile Flamenco Sevilla.
seville Giralda Tower city view
Seville view from the 342 foot Giralda Tower which is the bell tower of the Seville Cathedral.

Leaving Seville we made it to Cordoba on a quick 45 minute train ride. We only had two nights in Cordoba so as soon as we checked in the Airbnb, we headed out to see the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (locally called the Mezquita Catedral de Cordoba). The Mosque-Cathedral is a mosque turned into a cathedral, go figure. The mosque part is human sized and inviting, the cathedral part is overwhelming and ostentatious.

Our Airbnb in Cordoba had an alarm clock next-door, the bell tower of a church!

Our next stop was Ronda, this small city has the Guadalevín River running through it. The river has carved a steep 300+ foot canyon that separates the town into two parts. After a few collapsed attempts, the town completed the spectacular “New Bridge” to span the canyon in 1793.

Ronda’s a popular tourist destination and with good reason, it has history, welcoming streets, ancient buildings and that spectacular cliff view. But onward we go, our next stop is Granada, Spain and its La Alhambra “the best preserved Medieval Muslim City in the world”.

A couple of train rides got us to Granada in time to drop our bags at the Airbnb and head out to the Moorish quarter where we read there’s a great sunset view of the La Alhambra.

We had tried to get tickets to La Alhambra a few days prior and found them sold out. Slightly panicked we looked in the guidebook and it mentioned the Granada Pass may get us in. We looked into that and it worked!

After viewing the many stunning rooms and pools you come across the barrio where ordinary people lived in small one or two room dwellings.

Madrid – our next stop is a really big city with many personalities. When we first arrived we took two self guided walks…

The first walk was of historic Madrid, its Plaza Mayor has plaques commemorating historic events that took place in the square…in this case a Spanish Inquisition torture!
The second walk got us on the Calle Gran Via, a big busy shopping boulevard where we found the Dear Hotel’s rooftop bar to catch sunset.
This Madrid Airbnb is typical of the lodging we had, a converted top floor space in the historic district.

Three Madrid highlights were the Museo de America and its galleries featuring Mesoamerican artifacts, the Royal Palace of Madrid which is still in use by Spain’s royal family and Picasso’s 1937 Guernica at Madrid’s Reina Sofia, seeing the huge painting and reading its horrific war story was very moving. Guernica measures 25 ft 6 in across and 11 ft 5 in tall.

Picasso’s Guernica, painted in response to the April 26, 1937 bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war.

While in Madrid we took a day trip to Toledo, home of the 1586 El Greco painting “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, the 15 x 11 foot painting has been hanging in the church of Santo Tomé since 1587.

“The Burial of the Count of Orgaz”, El Greco at Iglesia de Santo Tomé, Toledo, Spain

Our train to our next to last city Valencia gave us a scare when in the middle of nowhere it reversed course and started going the other way, announcements were made in Spanish that were useless to us, but we somehow arrived in Valencia OK.

Beach day at Platja el Cabana in Valencia, it wasn’t warm enough for us to go in the water but the sun felt great.

During our stay in Spain and Portugal, “Esparto Blanco” asparagus was often on our plate for the vegetable, they’re soft, watery and kind of tasteless, we found them totally unappealing.

After five weeks of traveling we came to our last stop, Barcelona. Barcelona is in the Spanish region of Catalonia which has a fraught relationship with the rest of Spain. In fact in 2017 Catalonia held a referendum and voted to declare the region an independent republic. Barcelona is known for its architectural gift to the world “Modernisme” created by Antoni Gaudí and his contemporaries

We closed our Camino de Santiago, Portugal and Spain trip taking home a fantastic recipe for Tinto de Verano…1/2 half Spanish wine like Zinfandel, Pino Noir or Merlot, 1/2 half 7-Up, and a lemon slice or a splash of lemon juice, Cheers!

The Camino de Santiago

The Camino de Santiago is a network of pilgrim routes leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried there.

Cindy and I had often talked about doing one of the routes and with some advice from a seasoned traveler we chose the Camino Portuguese, the second most traveled route after the Camino Frances.
The whole Camino Portuguese is 643 km, rather than spend a month on the trail we chose to do an abbreviated version of 100 km which is the minimum distance that allows you to receive recognition in the form of a “Compostela” certificate issued by the Chapter of the Cathedral of Santiago.

We used the trip provider CaminoWays for our night’s lodging and luggage transfers so we could head out each day carrying only what we needed for that day’s walk and knowing we had a place to sleep that night.

Our daily walks varied from 5 miles to 15 miles. Most rural legs had one or two cafes along the way.

The last 100 Km of the Camino Portuguese

Our walk started mid-September in Vigo, Spain an Atlantic Ocean port city with a population of about 250,000. There was a bit of rain, luckily we had rain coats, pants and waterproof shoes. As we walked along the marked path suburban Vigo gave way to woods. This part of the route is high above the Ria De Vigo waterway. Our destination was Redondela, Spain, 9.3 miles from our start point.

Vigo, Spain, the start of our Camino!
Vigo, Spain, the start of our Camino! Follow the yellow arrow.

Day 2, Redondela to Arcade. Redondela is a small town known locally for the two railroad bridges that hover high over the main part of town.

Railroad bridge over Redondela, Spain.
Railroad bridge over Redondela, Spain.

Day 3, Arcade to Pontevedra took us across an old one-lane stone bridge and then through the rolling hills of the town’s outskirts.

Pontevedra one-lane stone bridge on the Camino Portuguese
The path was usually well marked with shell tiles and arrows.

Day 4, Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis led through vineyards and woods.

Day 5, Caldas de Reis to Padron took us past this old church and its above-ground burial vaults topped with crosses.

Old church and crosses
Old church.

Day 6, Padron to Teo. A common sight was these old stone pools fed by a running fountain, it wasn’t hot enough to entice us.

Stone pool along the Camino Portuguese
Stone pool.

Day 7, Teo to Santiago. Our endpoint of the walk. The cathedral houses the Tree of Jesse pillar marked with grooves from centuries of hands, the statue of St James and the Tomb of the Saint where thanks are given for all that has been encountered on the journey.

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
We made it to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
Compostela certificates
Our ‘Compostela’ certificates, in Latin no less! “Arturum” and “Cynthiam”