Treats and Surprises

We had a slow start today even though I had been awake quite early listening to the church bells when they started ringing at 7am and also the different birdsong. Love it!  Wendy wanted to show me The Church of Santiago, a very old church built on top of what was a Roman temple. When she was here last November the church was always closed so she expected the same but just as we arrived the door was opening up for visitors to have a look. The church warden got very excited when Wendy asked if he had a stamp for our credentials (identifying us as Canadian pilgrims) and started touring us all around the inside showing us various statues of St. James and giving us the FULL history of the church, all in Spanish. Wendy got every 10th word and I was only able to catch a word every once in awhile. He spoke very quickly with lots of big numbers for the different centuries when things were built. He took us into his office and pulled chairs out for us so he could stamp our cards and give us a talk about what it means to be a pilgrim. We did feel special and certainly appreciated his interest and excitement about the history of the church, St James and the pilgrimage from À Coruña to Santiago. 

Iglesia of Santigo, daytime and evening

13th century sculpture of St. James, inside the church

Our second surprise was being invited for lunch with Lanzada, our friend from Santiago who has been over to Victoria a few times for our Camino workshops. She now works as the Manager of Tourism for À Coruña. We met her at her office at 2:30 (Spanish time for lunch) and she took us to a special place in town where she knew the chef, one of her top 12 chefs in the city. It's called Pulperia de Melide. Melide is another town in Galicia famous for its pulpo (octopus). Same family. Neither one of us care much for this Galician delicacy but said we would both try it again, given that this chef does an especially good job with it. So lunch was a small bowl of pulpo, some potatoes with cayenne pepper, a wonderful fish, Cabracho done in tempura and fried along with strips of red and green peppers. It was served back on the fish with a sauce made of mayonnaise, garlic and something green. Quite delicious and quite unique.

Cabracho en tempura, before and after we had eaten.

Potato and pulpo

Lunch was a real treat, being out with Lanzada at a place she picked just for us to show off her city. We had a yummy dessert that the three of us shared but we had eaten it before I remembered to snap a picture. We left Lanzada and walked back to our hotel, only to find she had phoned ahead to chat with the manager. When we got to our room a waiter arrived with another bottle of complimentary water and a plate made especially for us to make us feel welcome.  We were also invited to complementary breakfasts for the next two mornings, and they put on an amazing spread!  We had not taken the breakfast option when making our booking because of the extra cost so we're very excited to accept this "gift".

Later we went out for dinner at O'Sampaio and had a delicious dinner of Raciones (rations are bigger than tapas, smaller than dinner). We ordered Raxo de Pollo con salsa de queso (little chicken bits fried with garlic and cheese) and Ensalada de Queso de Cabra (goat cheese salad). And a glass of rioja wine (a treat when we are in Spain). What a great day! We were thinking of forgetting the walk, and just staying here and enjoying this city. But no, as our blog title (2walk on) says, we will walk out on Thursday, if the hiking pants still fit!!

Buen Camino

Marion and Wendy