Sunday in Santiago

We had our breakfast with Clinete and then the three of us walked down to the old town to visit the Museum of the Galician People. I was the only one of the three of us who had not been before but we all enjoyed it. A bonus was that it is free on Sunday morning. It is in an old building San Domingo de Boneval, that was at one time a monestery/convent, and was mostly built in the 13th century. 

The most fun part of the museum is the triple spiral staircase which is actually 3 staircases going up, each to different floors and doors. (Well - they do come back down also!!)

From the bottom looking up

From the top of one staircase looking down. 

Clinete and Wendy on different staircases. Can you find Wendy?

The ceiling dome in the deconsecrated church.

And a staircase going nowhere, used to go to the pulpit which has been removed.

I love old doors.

After we left there we just had time for a cafe con leche in a plaza before going to the 1pm mass (in Spanish) to hear Scot John Rafferty (aka Johnny Walker) play the organ. The recessional he played was Oh Canada which was great fun for us, I'm sure no one else in the church knew what it was. Right after the service we met another Brit, Steven who at one time was a RC priest and now works in London but spends half his time in Spain. Also an American couple from Denver who had been in touch with John through his web site when they were here 4 years ago and their packs were stolen from what they had assumed was a secure spot at their hotel. Steven and John had eventually found them at the police station with just about all their possessions intact. Steven then had everything cleaned and packaged up and sent back to the USA to them.  This was the first time all 4 of them had met. 

We all went for lunch at John's usual spot for Sunday lunch. Also at lunch was an American gal who is on sabbatical from the University of William and Mary and is doing research on families walking the Camino. We were very pleased to be invited to share this meal with these interesting people where we got to talk Camino for 2 1/2 hours. And the lunch was delicious starting with Caldo soup (cabbage), a fabulous goat cheese salad (the best I have had), the next course was merluzco, (a white fish) then dessert which was a nummy Creme caramel. 

The goat cheese salad.

After saying our goodbyes we headed home, stopping once again to enquire about a rooftop tour of the cathedral. Nope, don't know, maybe tomorrow, come in again in the morning, no they don't take lists and only run an English tour if there is a demand. So we are not sure how they know the demand if they don't keep a list.

We headed back home and had some seriously needed downtime until the family arrived back home and then we had a great time chatting with Victor and Lanzada over bread, cheese and wine until bedtime.

A manaña

Marion and Wendy