Jack and Dianne - Portuguese 2023

 We left Santiago this morning and headed for Madrid on a high speed train.  Breakfast was at our hotel and then we got picked up by taxi for a short drive to the train station.  It was a smooth 3.5 hour train ride thru the countryside of Spain.  Very smooth trip and we had a snack on the way. We took a taxi to the Marriott at the airport.  We got a nice king bed for the first time in our entire trip!  No twin beds tonight.  We also have Kleenex in the room which is another first for this trip - toilet paper has been our Kleenex in Portugal and Spain.   We have access to the executive lounge so our afternoon snack was wine and nuts.  We talked to two nice ladies we met on the train platform who also walked the Camino.  It was fun to exchange thoughts on each others walk.  We used the lounge as our supper as well with red wine and assorted finger foods.  They had some nice desserts to finish our meal.  We are back in our room relaxing and getting ready for our long day tomorrow - Madrid

We stayed in Santiago st a wonderful hotel close to the Catedral. We got up late and took our time most of the day.  We had a simple breakfast at the hotel then headed out to stroll the city.  We were looking for several different things to buy including specific T Shirts amid with tiles that broke during our windy winter.   After visiting MANY stores we found everything we wanted.  We ended up at a cafe that was on the Camino route and we enjoyed watching the walkers come in for more than an hour.  All kinds of people walk the Camino and we saw alot of them.  One group of 5 headed off down the wrong street and a few minutes March back to find the correct route to the Catedral.   We went back and took a break then walked around the old town of Santiago one last time knowing we probably would ever come back to this town.  We went back to the hotel to change clothes then headed to a wonderful restaurant we ate at a year ago.  The food was again very special and we had a wonderful meal.  

We had a nice day in a bus to Finisterre today since we were not interested in waking another 3 days out to the ocean. The day was a lot of fun with 5 stops including the end point down the Finisterre Camino out at the lighthouse.  We saw some wonderful countryside without having to walk each step.  We saw a beautiful waterfall in the mountains that they called Olympus.  We went to the ‘end of the world’ which was one of the westernmost points beyond which people believed the world ended.  We had a wonderful lunch in Finisterre listening to a terrible singer.   We visited a beautiful church dedicated to sailors who were lost at sea.  Our last stop was at an old Roman bridge and the river below was important for grinding grain.  We finished the tour in a thunder and lightning storm with the rain coming down in buckets as we got off the bus.  We marched a few blocks to a cafe to wait out the heavy rain then headed home.    It was a nice calming sat without having to tape our feet and lac

We walked from Teo to Santiago today and the weather was nice with a mix of clouds and sun.  The high was 72 and it was humid.  The distance was just over 8 miles but we had two climbs of 500 feet each so that added some time/. The walk was very nice with a lot of trails in the woods and thru small villages.   The end was on city streets as we headed down into the old city before getting to the Catedral.  The crowds were smaller than last year but it was still very exciting to finish in the square with the Catedral rising above us.  We both cried as we came into the square - it was very emotional to finally be done after 35 days.   We had an amazing adventure but tomorrow we can sleep in and we don’t have to get our bags ready and we can enjoy our time in Santiago. We had dinner tonight with the 6 people from Iowa and it was a wonderful meal together.  It was tough to say goodbye but we plan on seeing them when we travel to Iowa.   Buen Camino (good camino)