Day 43 – 21 August 2023 – Madrid to Santiago, Spain

Awake at 6 am as we have to sort our bags, re-pack & leave them outside the door to be loaded on the bus. Another great breakfast then onto the bus at 8.30 am for our drive to Santiago de Compostela, around 600 kilometres away.

As we travel Sonia explains some of the history of Spain, how the country has a number of different autonomous states & the relationship with Portugal, France & the outlying Spanish territories. Sonia is very knowledgeable & the talk is very interesting. As we pass through different towns & there are highlights such as a church or castle she lets us know what they are.

Our first stop this morning is at a winery, over 350 years old & originally set up by Dominican monks. It is now owned by Alberto Wines & we are taken on a tour underground of the wine cellars dug by hand by the monks. We can see the tool marks in the rock from when the monks dug the cellars. There is a labyrinth of tunnels around 10 metres underground & the temperature is a constant 15 degrees C year round. Our guide, Ruth, says that there are around 1.5 kilometres of tunnels under the old monastery & countless wine storage areas. After we exit the cellars Tereza manages to lock herself in the toilets & I had to help her to get out. Thank heavens Ron came looking for me & with a coin he somehow opened the door from outside. I started to worry that I will miss out on the cheese & wine tasting (haha). 

Wine tasting is in a large room & we each get a generous glass of white wine to try, this wine is the speciality of the vineyard & is very tasty, especially when tasted with the slices of local cheese. The local Rose wine is next, this is made using a tempranillo grape with the skins only left in for 8 hours. It is very nice & most of the ladies prefer this wine over the white. A few people from our group buy some wine for consuming during our trip.

Our bus driver takes us comfortably past many towns whilst we sit back & relax watching the farms pass by. There is an odd ruin of a church or farmhouse, sometimes a castle or church on top of a hill. The trees get larger & greener the further north we go. Around 2 pm we stop at a roadside fuel stop & café for a bite to eat, Tereza has a tuna salad & I have a Serrano ham roll bigger than you can imagine.

We are very impressed with Sonia, not only is she knowledgeable, she works very hard to keep our group harmonious. She told us about herself & after each one of us took the microphone & told a brief history about ourselves.  It is amazing all the different lives we have, yet in so many ways we have a lot in common.  Out of the 17 of us, there are 3 from USA, 2 from South Africa, 1 from Malaysia & the rest of us are Ozzies.  Sonia & the driver, Norberto are Portuguese.

We reach our destination in Santiago de Compostela around 5 pm & after we check in & get our bags in the room we go out for a walk to the nearby Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the apparent burial site of Saint James the Apostle. The Cathedral is huge & there are a number of tour groups outside plus lots of others. We take a few photos then walk back as we will be going inside the Cathedral on a tour tomorrow.  This place is only 32C, cooler than yesterdays 40C but we were hot & sweaty by the time we got back to the hotel.

A freshen up in our room before drinks at 7.30 pm followed by a delicious 3 course dinner with drinks at 8 pm. We sit & chat with a tour companions for a while before heading back to our room & bed. A long & tiring, but good day.