MADRID

Today we had to get up at 4:30 so we could leave at 5:30 for the apart, which is about an hour' strive from the hotel in the town of Vigo.  I can guarantee you they did not book that airport because of their efficiency.  

We got there in a very timely fashion but it went pretty much downhill from there.  The important issue is that we only got a boarding pass for the flight to Madrid, with the offhand statement that we would get our other two boarding passes in Madrid.  Our flight seemed okay, but we were maybe ten minutes late getting to Madrid.  Fie on you Viking, for booking us with only an hour to change planes from a local airline to an international.  

As we were arriving, the flight crew told us that we would have to move fast to terminal 1 from terminal 2.  Okay, no problem.  And when we got there, it was still okay, because they even had a shuttle bus.  And when we got off the shuttle bus, the sign said 13 minutes to our gate.

UNTIL!!  Customs or immigration or something, which wouldn't let us pass through without a boarding pass.  Where do we get one? Go to the Delta counter, which frankly, was more or less in Atlanta.  The other couple from our group, who had planned a more leisurely transfer by leaving Viga an hour earlier, had found out the night before that their flight was cancelled, and they were booked on the same one as we were.  She had been complaining and worrying since at least 5 pm yesterday,  and by this time she was raving mad.  She was just screaming at the poor Delta desk person, and frankly, none of this was Delta's fault.  There were five of us from our plane, and this woman (I think her name is Julie) was just ranting and yelling, etc.  They got her a new flight, told her she'd have to go someplace that wasn't well marked to get the checked luggage, then go through security and walk all the way back through the airport and go through security again in a half hour.  When our turn came to deal with the Delta person, it was a title easier, because we were gong farther, so there were more choices. While we were talking to her, Julie came back and said they couldn't find the luggage, the desk person told her where it was again, and off they went.  About five minutes later, A guy from Delta brought all the transit luggage up to the counter from wherever it was hidden downstairs.  About this time, Julie came back again, saw her luggage and was furious.  

By then Delta had found us a delightful flight, madrid to JFK, JFK to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to SF, arriving at 10:30.  Told us to walk down to the KLM desks where agents were standing by to help us.  

In short, NOT.  

Now we are standing in line at KLM, still with no ticket, no boarding g pass, in short, nothing but our passports and the pathetic boarding pass from Viga showing that once we had been on a plane.  The fifth person in our group, Anna, was a young woman going home after teaching in Spain for a year with three pieces of luggage, one of them about the size of a Mini Cooper, one a backpacking affair, and a third backpack suitable for a two week trip, plus two heavy coats flapping around.  

And then, riding up on a white horse came Marisa, obviously the chief customer service rep from Delta.  She told all five of us that she had made arrangements for us to stay overnight in Madrid, gave us vouchers for breakfast lunch and dinner plus a nice room -- though located near the airport and far from any public transportation, and told us to be back at the airport tomorrow morning, get in the business class line and ask for her, and she would make the best available arrangements in business class.  Oh, I forgot to mention, French air controllers are on strike, so millions of people are also trying to make other arrangements.  

So now we are sitting around our Italian-designed hotel room (read minimalist, angular design) and John is sleeping away the day in Madrid, except when he is turning on the TV and going through all the channels because, hey, you never know when the English fairy will come along and they'll all be in English.  I keep turning it off when he falls asleep.  So far that's been three offs.  

But wait!  The sleeping giant awakes and suggests we go for a walk through the lovely industrial park where we are staying.  Actually,this will give us a chance to see Madrid not as the quaint old squares, but the new Madrid.  

If by new Madrid, one means boxy, trying-to-look-cutting-edge buildings, then we have seen the future.  Or maybe the past, because most of these places have for rent signs on them.  

However, we did find a store that must have had every item the Chinese make in it.  I suspect that's more the future for all of us.  

home decorations, crafts, clothing, tools, toys, electronics, "as seen on TV" stuff, flower pots, sewing supplies, more shoe inserts than I've ever seen, various linens, etc., etc. mostly more or less arranged by type, but occasionally with some little effort put into making a display.  

Our free meals were both pretty awful, mostly because the meat must have come from a marathon-running bull.  But, hey, it was free.

Tomorrow a.m. At the very civilized time of 8:30 it's back to the airport. I got a text from Delta on my app that looks as if we are booked through JFK to SF.  Hope that's right.  

OUR DAY IN SANTIAGO

This morning was a little overcast, so we took our new $5 umbrellas when we went out on our tour.  And I wore both my coat and my sweater.  It was a good idea, but by noon, it was way too much of a good thing.  

We had the best city guide I can remember for this walking tour, enthusiasm, great people skills, and an ability to pack a lot of information and activity into a three hour tour.  

I think the best part for me, though, was when we first got to the square in front of the church.  A woman walked into the square from the "French" entrance, and it was such a moving experience for her to have arrived that she was trying very hard not to cry.  We saw many other pilgrims arrive today, one of the fun parts about just hanging out in the square, but that was the most raw emotion I saw all day.  

A good part of our tour was inside the church, because there is so much to see.  One of the cool things is that they have a big sensor (just tried a million spellings for that and none of them looks right-- a thing that distributes incense) which is about five feet tall.

 On special occasions (religious holidays, or when someone pays for it) they swing this sensor the whole length of the church. As with so many things on this trip, we got lucky.  It's absolutely amazing to see.  They have five or six guys pulling on the rope to make it go.  I made a video of it, but can't upload it.  I think when out of town priests bring groups here, they might get to help celebrate the mass.  One of the priests was so thrilled, he kept whipping out his cell phone to take pictures.  Santiago really is a very spiritual place, even to a heathen like me, and even with all the commercialization.  

Being an old medieval town, it also has some tiny narrow streets, some too narrow for an umbrella.  

We had a nice lunch at an outdoor cafe, with perhaps the surliest waiter I've met in Europe.  Or maybe he wasn't really a waiter.  Everything he brought to the table he kind of slammed down like he was angry, refused to change my order when he got it wrong, and so on.  But it was a good time anyway.  

We had a really nice almond cake for dessert, though the rest of the meal was nothing to write home about -- though I am writing home about it, after all.  Once we finished eating, we shopped a bit more, didn't buy anything -- but John's back was hurting so he lured me back to the hotel so he could take some naproxen, and about ten minutes after we got back a thunderstorm that lasted for 3 hours started, so of course, by that time John was in airplane worry mode and we never left the hotel again.  I may go out at midnight, because tonight is bonfire night for the solstice, and there are several that will be near our hotel.  But then again, we are leaving at 6 a.m., so not all that likely. 

Changed my mind. It stopped raining so I went out and walked a bit around 9 pm.  The smoke in this picture is from all the bonfires at about 9:30. As you can see, the sun is still quite high in the sky.  It's now almost 11, and it's finally dark. 

PORTO --> SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

Farewell to Porto this morning, and on to Santiago de Compostela, but with a long stop in Barga on the way.  When you take the extension, you really don't get that much of a chance to see the extension city, but it's nice on the day when everybody has to be on their way to the airport, and we can have a civilized breakfast and 9 a.m. departure.  

Our trip to Santiago was about five hours, but we had two stops.  One was at the oldest shrine in Portugal, (I think -- but maybe it was the oldest shrine on the A-2 -- all the superlatives are starting to sound alike.  It's another one of those 600 steps places, and we didn't go up or down them this time, either.  Only because they didn't give us time to do it, of course.  This church had a very unusual altar, though.  It was 3-D with life sized statues in a tableau.  Believe it or not, this is the first place we have encountered pay toilets on this trip.  

From there we went into the nearby town of Barga,

which is a very interesting little town with maybe the oldest cathedral in Portugal  -- or not.  However, it has the oldest organ in Portugal, and it sounds good.  We were there when they were having mass, and they have people who actually go to mass filling the church, this great organ, which is also beautiful, and a wonderful choir.  In my opinion, everything you'd want to go to church for.  

We had a little walk around the old part of town, stopped at Ferreiras and had their eponymous dish, which is a lot of sheets of thin pastry, like filo, with hamburger and cheese cooked into it.  I didn't realize the hamburger and cheese was the default filling and any other filling was added to it, not instead, so I had an egg on mine and john had ham and cheese on his.  It was very filling.  The other claim to fame of this restaurant besides inventing this, is that some years ago while doing some repairs, they found roman ruins under the cafe, so they put in a glass floor so you can see the ruins below you. 

Tourist business in this town is largely devoted to religious stuff -- statues, rosaries, etc., etc.  I'd say at least every fifth shop was strictly religious stuff, and the rest of the shops catering to tourists had a section for that kind of holy chatchkes.  They are getting ready for St. João's celebration, which I finally discovered is really June 31, but really, why wait if you can start partying now?  Today's event was a drum band, which was able to totally drown out five bagpipes. We got as far away as we could from that!!

It's interesting how the landscape changes.  The Douro valley looks a lot like our part of California, then we get into a much greener coastal area on our way to Spain.  

We arrived in Santiago at about 4 pm, though they are an hour ahead of Portugal, so we had to set our watches ahead.  I didn't think we were all that far north, but the sun was still in the sky at 9:15. We had a little introductory walk from Viking at 6:30.  Fortunately john and I had gone and bought umbrellas.   because it was pouring 8 guests started the tour, 6 went two blocks and went home, but John and I did the whole tour.  Three hours later we're still trying to get our shoes dry.  

Santiago de Compostela is a beautiful city.  It is totally dedicated to the pilgrims who do the trail.  This has to be one of the oldest tourist cities in the world.  I'll have more misinformation about it tomorrow, I'm sure. Meanwhile, here's a picture just before it started to rain.  And they say only true believers come to compostela.  

We had tapas for dinner tonight.  Yum.  

RÉGUA AND MATEUS PALACE AND ANOTHER PARADE

We left Pinhão this morning at 6:45, fortunately requiring nothing on our part, and arrived in Régua at 9 a.m., and then it was out and onto the buses for a visit to Mateus Palace. Remember Mateus rosé, the wine everybody drank in the 60’s?  This is the palace on the label of the wine. 

It's a baroque palace built in the 1750’s.  It's a pretty over the top place with designs that enhance vistas and mirror images.  

It's cloudy and cooler today, but didn't rain, so we had time to walk through the manicured gardens.  There is one gardener and two helpers to maintain this lovely ornamental garden.  

Our afternoon was spent cruising back to Porto and packing.  I had enough food for lunch to last me for a week, but I bet I'll eat a full dinner.  Lunch consisted of three salads, Waldorf,  octopus, and ham and pineapple, fish soup, a BLT, and chocolate cake.  I no longer have to worry about fitting into clothes, it's now about getting through doorways.  

We have to be out of the room and on the bus at 9 a.m. tomorrow, so packing is a priority today.  Yuck.  Packing means the trip is over, even though we're going on to Santiago de Compostela.  John has already started worrying about plane flights home.  

After dinner tonight we went out looking for. Pharmacy, but it was too late.  I wanted to get some zinc lozenges, because I'm getting a cold.  It was too late, but guess what?  Tomorrow is St Juão's day, and there was a parade tonight.  This one is in the little neighborhood on the Gaia side of the river at Porto, and it's a little funny parade, not as slick as the one in Lisbon, but more little kids, and just cute. It started at around 9 and is still going on at 11:45.  

VEGA DE TERRON TO PINHÃO

We left Vega de Terron and cruised this morning from about 6:45 til around noon.   While we were cruising we had our disembarkation briefing -- always complicated when you have so many people to get to the airport.   Then we stopped in Pinhão again, and had an afternoon tour.  I didn't think this one was all that interesting.  

We visited a moscatel winery for yet another winery tour, and as far as I'm concerned, they are all alike.  I'm even getting tired of the tastings, since they're not any wines I particularly like.  And I think we've been to at least five winery tours or tastings.  

On the other hand we went to a bakery, and I thought that was good.  

But after the winery and the bakery, we went to the museum of bread and wine which was a total repeat of the first two visits, but without the tasting.  

After that, we went to a "private home" which appeared to me to be a place set up for tour bus dinners, the difference being that here the food was good.  On the bad side, there was this band that followed us around all day, consisting of an accordion and anywhere from one to three percussion players.  They were okay when they were outside the bakery, but inside the hall where we were eating, it was like being in a small room with a bagpipe.  

Finally bought a postcard today, which will arrive long after we get home.  

Again, we traveled through some beautiful scenery today,

though our pictures are routinely bad.  I guess maybe I am willing to get a slightly better camera.  I don't think the iPhone really cuts it, plus, the battery runs down in less than a day.  Not too bad when you come back to the ship every day at noon and can charge it, but otherwise.  

I'm also including a picture of an oak cork tree, or maybe it's a cork oak.  They strip the cork off every nine years, and this one was stripped this year.  

One last thing:  every day the maid comes in and does something cute with our clothes or the towels or something.  

Today I turned the tables on her

 

SALAMANCA

Today we went to Salamanca. It's about a two hour ride, depending on how many people need to use the toilet on the bus-- the bus slows down while someone is in the toilet.

The scenery here could easily be mistaken for our foothills, except there are cranes.  They are so much fun to see, and I got an okay picture.  They are all along this old bridge.  

So close to Portugal, but it looks different here.  For one thing, they have animals instead of just grapes and olive trees.  Secondly, they grow wheat or some kind of wheat-like crop.  

Salamanca is a really interesting city.  Very old, of course, with a university that's been here since the 700s or something.  Plus, they have a drop dead gorgeous cathedral.  

The new cathedral is only 400 years old or so, and is built into the old cathedral, which is also a fortress.

 The best thing we saw today, though, was the art nouveau and Art Deco museum.  It was small but had some very cool things, especially a lot of little table pieces, little sculptures that look like Erté. 

Part of our tour was a wonderful buffet lunch at a hotel, and for a change for that type of thing the food was good.

 Paella, nice cheeses, salad bar.  I was a very happy camper.  And of course included a little Flamenco dance concert.  

We had a nice guided walking tour in the afternoon and saw a redwood tree from California planted in the courtyard of the cathedral, a building built along the Santiago trail, which goes through Salamanca, and covered with stone representations of the shells.  

There are some interesting little jokes in Salamanca.  When some of the carving on the cathedral was replaced in the 1990s, some distinctly more modern carvings were added.  There are some endangered species (including the local storks) and there is also an astronaut and a devil eating a nice cream cone.  (I captured these pictures off the web because mine were no good.  

The other thing is that there is a Great Wall, about three stories high on one of the university buildings.  New students are brought to the wall, and if they can find the frog, it is a sign they will do well at university.  They'd better be young and have really good eye site, because it's in a corner, perched on top of a skull, and about 40 feet up.  

This is the best picture I could find of it, and it's not all that clear.  

This is the wall.  

Dinner back at the boat was an outdoor feast of traditional Portuguese foods.  

CRUISING, BOOZING, AND CASTEL RODRIGO

View from our window in Barca d'Alva

Today's itinerary

Leave Pinhão for Barca d'Alva

Learn to make pastel de nato with the chef

Learn the entire history of Portugal in a half hour

Shore excursion to Castelo Rodrigo

Viking explorer society (me, not john, LOL) cocktail party

Captain's cocktail party for the hoi polloi

Captain's dinner

This is the night I may have to change clothes for dinner. Oh, no! 

Pastel de nato

John relaxing.  This is our room.  

I just realized that the only birds I've seen are seagulls and bats. You would think that with all these vineyards there would be rats or other food for raptors, but there must not be. 

However, today at our dock there were a lot of swallows, and when we went up the hill on the bus to the castel, there was a stork nest with the stork and a baby in it.  

Then in the town, we saw the belfry where the storks nest, but I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus for a picture.  

Stork story. Baby stork on first flight crashed onto the church roof. The .priest heard it hit, called the firemen and they took it to vet.  Saved but couldn't fly.  Firemen took it, got it baptized with the name of Joanna.  Grew more confident, started walking around FD.  Became an icon.  A documentary made.  Had a fatal encounter with a dog.  Firemen decided to embalm Joanna, and found out she was John.

The castel town is a tiny place with what appears to be a population of about 50 or so, though there is a kindergarten there.  The old ruined castle is surrounded by typical Portuguese red tiled roof houses, some of them built into the rock.

These pictures are really dark.  We brought our old camera, and the day we got here it stopped having any kind of display while you're trying to take a picture.  When it's kind of dark, you can still adjust the settings better than the iPhone, but I didn't realize I did that a couple of days ago.  But you totally can't see what you think your photographing.  

 I particularly liked the one with roof tiles around the rock and plants growing out to the rock.  And that looked like a house someone was living in.  This area, in addition to grapes, has olive trees and some almond trees.  There is also a place very near the road where the compostela trail is visible.  The little round building in the back is a dovecote.  There are lots of them around here.  

We went to both the cocktail parties.  Both were boring.  

Tonight we are trying to go to bed early because we have to be on the bus to go to Salamanca in the morning at 8:30.