20261102 Porto to Braga and Santiago de Compostela

20261102 Porto to Braga and Santiago de Compostela

We had packed up most of our suitcase contents in the afternoon, so it was pretty easy to get the toothbrush bag and chargers zipped in and out into the hallway before 8 a.m.  There were passengers who had early morning flights that had to get off the ship in the small hours of the early morning.  We were able to have a normal breakfast while the ship’s crew was busily turning over staterooms and even deep disinfecting a section of the dining room.  

We were part of a group of 10 passengers doing the post-cruise extension to Santiago de Compostela.  Somehow, someone figured out in the 9th century that the Apostle James was buried in a tomb.  Ever since this discovery, Santiago de Compostela has been a pilgrimage site for Christians, ranking alongside Rome and Jerusalem as the three great holy cities of Christianity.  The sea shell markers we saw in Lisboa and Porto all point to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the Apostle St. James (Tiago in Spanish and Portuguese) lies in a tomb.  The pilgrimage is called the Camino de Santiago.  

We were pleasantly surprised that instead of getting jammed into a Sprinter van, we had a whole Viking 40-passenger coach to ourselves.  This made for a very comfortable drive.  

Our first stop was a visit to the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte, which is literally Good Jesus on the Mountain.  

This Sanctuary sits atop a hill overlooking Braga with a series of monumental steps similar to the Sanctuary in Lamego we visited on Halloween.  Our bus drove us to the very top, but did not give us the option of getting picked up at the bottom.  We toured the Cathedral and Sanctuary at the top, enjoyed the view of Braga from this vantage point, and then continued on to the city of Braga.  

The cathedral and sanctuary were notable for having much more meticulously groomed gardens and grounds.  There was an odd man-made grotto in one of the gardens, complete with fake stalactites and a stream.  

Within the Romanesque cathedral, the main altar had a giant life-sized diorama of Jesus’s crucifixion day, complete with some Roman soldiers having a picnic in the foreground.  In a side chapel, there was a display that was a library of saints, but which at first glance looked like something out of Disney’s “It’s a Small World”. 

 

The Sanctuary apparently has a hydraulically operated funicular that more often than not is broken.  We did not get to see that or appreciate the steps, but there was an art exhibit commemorating the art of postcards depicting the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte that had pictures of these features.  

There was a bathroom, but even for us Viking excursion visitors, there was a 0.50€ toll.  Fortunately, there is a toilet on the bus.  

It was a long winding drive back down off the mountain to the center of Braga.  Braga was the capital of the Roman province Gallaecia.  Today, it is host to the oldest Portuguese archdiocese, and for us, our last chance to buy Portuguese souvenirs.  It is, of course, on the Camino de Santiago route.

We were dropped off near the center of town and walked through the ceremonial gate to the core of the medieval city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  We walked up the narrow streets to the Cathedral, which we got to tour.  There were bathrooms that were by voluntary donation only.  Since we have been traveling without euros, this was a bonus feature. 

 

The Braga Cathedral was consecrated in 1089 under the devotion to Santa Maria de Braga.  Its core is Romanesque, with Baroque flourishes added in the 18th century.  This included painted ceiling frescoes which had been subsequently removed or destroyed as ecclesiastical decorating tastes evolved over the centuries.  But some have been restored and now remain under UNESCO World Heritage site protections.  

There is an incredibly ornate organ in the choir covered in gold leaf.  Among the decorative elements of the organ is a precursor to Chuck E. Cheese’s animatronic characters in the form of an angel that waves its hand under the control of the organist to engage the audience.

There is an ornate clock high above the entrance that would make it convenient for the priest to know exactly what time it was during mass.

The tomb of Infant D. Afonso (1390-1400) is adjacent to the entry at the back of the church.  He was heir to the throne of Portugal. 

In a side yard lies surplus bits and pieces of the cathedral that have accumulated over the ages, including a pagan image of a sun god dating to pre-Christian Roman times.  
There was another depiction of Mary helping adolescent Jesus with some homework in this cathedral.

After touring the cathedral, we had 2 hours of free time to have lunch and do some shopping.  We had a picnic in a beautiful garden behind the cathedral on the city square, and Janet got her final Portuguese souvenirs from a shop recommended by our Viking guide. 

These included a new Portuguese tablecloth to supplement/replace one Janet had bought in Portugal 50 years ago while traveling during college, and a cork hat.  Ben got a Braga bottle opener so we could pop open some Coca-Cola bottles with our lunch. 

When we crossed the border from Portugal to Spain, our clocks jumped forward an hour because Spain is on German time. It seems strange that Spain didn’t revert to the same time zone as Portugal and most of western Europe after joining the EU.

The bus made a rest stop in Vigo at 3:30 p.m., a large city on a bay open to the Atlantic.  There are lots of aquaculture rafts growing mussels in Vigo.  These were familiar to us because Taylor Shellfish grows blue mussels in Penn Cove, which is literally our backyard.  

The truck stop actually was very clean, bright, and had a decent cafeteria-styled restaurant and free clean bathrooms.  Our outbound flights from Spain will be out of Vigo to Madrid, and then from Madrid to the US.  

We arrived at the Palacio del Carmen hotel in Santiago de Compostela around 5 p.m.  The hotel does not really look like a hotel from the outside.  That’s because it was a historic tannery run by nuns during medieval times.  The layout is a bit strange and has the rooms running down a single long corridor with rooms on one side accessed by skybridges reminiscent of a medieval gaol or prison.  

But once we found our room, it was inviting enough.  It was equipped with two twin beds pushed together but made separately.  This seems to be a common European hotel phenomenon. The bathroom was equipped with a European bidet, which is something we don’t often see.  The room was stuffy, so the air conditioning is a bit weak.  The window opens, but we were afraid of letting bugs in, so we left the window closed and hoped the air conditioning would catch up as the evening cooled down.  

We explored the hotel and found a small gym and pool, as well as a peek-a-boo view of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral towers in the distance.  The Cathedral is supposedly just a 7-minute walk from the hotel.  

We put that to a test as our guide Mariella took us on an orientation walk which took us right to the Cathedral.  She did point out a few restaurants along the way, including two with Michelin stars, but both would not open until 8:30 p.m.  The custom in Spain is to have the main meal midday, followed by siesta, and then a light meal in the late night.  

Building owned by the Church.

Low doorways

The sun was setting as we arrived at the front of the Cathedral.  This is situated on the main town square, opposite of city hall.  There was a tent city erected in front of the city hall.  These weren’t religious pilgrims, although some pilgrims do sleep in tents.  

These were political protestors, protesting policies, housing shortages, and high living expenses, as has been going on throughout Europe over the past month or two.  A lot of this unrest was triggered by rising costs associated with Trump’s war in Iran.  

We did not enter the Cathedral as this is the plan for tomorrow’s formal tour.  Mariella did take us to a couple of restaurants that she could recommend that were open early for dinner so we could eat and get to bed at a decent hour.  

We ended up eating at Taberna Montes where we ordered grilled octopus, mussels, and fried potatoes.  The grilled octopus and potatoes were both quite good, while the mussels were a bit dried out and not served with any liquid.  We are used to having mussels served with a generous portion of wine and herb broth and crusty garlic bread.  We ended up washing down the mussels with the local Estrella Galicia beer.  While we dined, two other couples of our tour group eventually wandered in to have dinner as well.  

We browsed through some gift shops on the way back to the hotel, but took a wrong turn and ended up going a mile down the wrong street before we used Google Maps to navigate back to our hotel.  Thank goodness for e-SIM data plans and Google Maps.  

Tomorrow we do our official Santiago de Compostela tour, which will be entirely on foot, in the spirit of doing our own mini Camino de Santiago.