16 Santiago de Compostela

When we came to Galicia we very much wanted to visit Santiago de Compostela.
We discovered that a brand new Camino was created last year : el Camino por Mar or the pilgrimage by boat.
While lots of Caminos exist to do on foot or biking it is no more than logical to have one by boat since the remains of the Saint have indeed arrived by boat to the rough coast of Galicia.

The Camino por Mar must consist of at least 70 miles of navigating by sail and after that a minimum of 12 km walking.
Needless to say that this Camino appealed to us very much and since we had much more than the nautical miles needed we set out to walk.

At first we found a bus which would bring us a good part of the way and after having disembarked in Bertamiráns we walked the scenic path to the city of Santiago.
Here we admired the 11th century cathedral, the museum, library, Gobelins, the palacio de los Reyes, the Abastos market and got lost in the wonderful medieval streets of the old city.

We certainly were rewarded by a true miracle which happened on our strolls through the town: apart from my sister in law and her family we don’t know any Spanish people but suddenly someone called out to us and it turned out to be her brother from Madrid whom we hadn’t seen for at least ten years and just happened to see us walking by.
He made the Camino by bike all the way from Porto and so we were duly impressed by this.
It was nice to see him again.

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