A couple of memories from Madrid on our way home

Hello, everyone.  After our rest in Córdoba,  we took the train back to Madrid for our flight home.

We saw a living wall near the train station. That is a lot of plants! I guess they are each potted separately, so nothing sags. 

The favorite bakery, on Puerta del Sol

I had to cut the morning snack photo into halves.

The cake was approved by DH. I had the toasted croissant with butter.

After recent rains, beauty

Hello, everyone.  It has rained a few days back, and today I went outside to see what things look like. 

This little rain lily was part of an order I got from Plant Delights Nursery a whole back. The species lived, the hybrid plant in the same order died.

The fiddlewood has berries on it. It blooms with tiny white flowers.

I did mention that the lantanas we saw in Córdoba were a familiar plant. This one was a gift of the birds. 

Another rain lily. 

These rain lilies are sideways, I'm not sure why. (I did crop the photo to make it wider than it is tall, but that seems not to have worked.) They don't set seeds, they just make baby bulbs. Which means I have more just like them over time. 😀

We were studying the plants in Córdoba

Hello,  everyone.  We were taking a good look at the various plants around Córdoba,  because the climate there is like south Texas. We were looking for landscape ideas. To our surprise, many of the plants we saw were familiar from home. Citrus? Check. Lantana shrubs? Check. Palm trees? Check. Jacaranda trees? Check. 

There were some trees we didn't recognize along the streets.

This is sideways even though I cropped it. The tree has little white flowers that are shaped like tiny soup bowls.

You want to look up before you park overnight on some streets.

There were pink water lilies at the Botanical Garden. These are so sturdy in their structure that I thought they looked like plastic.

This is the close cousin of artichoke. They are raised for their stems.

This is the flower. There are a lot of little flower flies in there along with the bumblebee. 

If you look closely you can see a huge wasp or bee. There were lots of them around some white flowers. It was almost a feeding frenzy at that flower bed.

Córdoba is very historic

Hello, everyone. Our visit to Córdoba fell in the hot season, and this year we were able to readjust to Texas temperatures during our few days here.

We visited the Cathedral, the Alcazar which had been a royal palace, the Botanical Garden, the Archeological Museum, and various parks and eating places. We also were able to attend Mass at San Juan y los todos Santos, a beautiful Baroque church near where we stayed. 

A quick snapshot after Mass was over at San Juan parish church 

View of street trees (jacarandas) from the train station 

This impressive thistle, with its little buggy visitors, is a relative of artichoke, Cardo, which is grown for its stems. That bumblebee was really big!

People in Córdoba are really into potted plants as outdoor wall ornaments. These are geraniums (pelargoniums type) and someone comes around to keep them watered, so they're very nice.

The tower at the Alcazar. It has a good view of the royal gardens and the whole area. We went up there and the stairs are a real workout.

After Santiago, a few extra days were available...

Hello,  everyone.  We had a busy arrival day in Santiago,  getting our Compostelas, checking into our accommodation, and going down to the train station to get departure tickets. There we discovered that the people were not able to help us get the tickets. We were there too early,  and we needed to buy the tickets online or at the vending machine.

We went to the ticket vending machine, opened Monday, and discovered that the trains on Monday were sold out. Oops. Time to rework the plan. Switched to Tuesday and got early seats out. Went back to the accommodation and reserved an extra night. Sat down with cell phones on the wifi and fussed around with options until we decided on what to do with our days: Córdoba is very historic. So we got train tickets online from Madrid to Cordoba, reserved a few nights in Cordoba, and also reserved the pre-departure time in Madrid. (So we wouldn't be trying to run across the city from train station to catch the outgoing flight all at once.) Then we spent some decompression time in Santiago. 

On Tuesday we left to Madrid, took the metro across town to the other train station, and caught the train to Córdoba. This went smoothly--as long as you allow for buffer time it will work--and when we got to Córdoba we used our Spain phone Google maps to find our place.

This is dried tuna tapa. The garnish is almonds with a drizzle of olive oil. 

The other tapa we tried was gulas (baby eels, but actually imitation gulas made from fish) with garlic mayo on toast. These are the last 2 on the plate. 😉

Arzua to Pedrouzo and on to Santiago!

Hello, everyone.  This is another of the catch-up posts.

Arzua to Pedrouzo (O Pino) is about 20 km. We had great weather. 

Entering Pedrouzo

Pilgrims' Mass at Santa Eulalia de Arca

We stayed at Albergue Porta de Santiago,

 where we have stayed before. The laundry facilities are okay on washer, great on clotheslines. The upper bunks have ladders, of course, but these ones are much less uncomfortable to climb.

Rolling out before 7 today!

This little chapel is at the Monte de Goyo, the mountain of joy. It is said that, during the early centuries of the Santiago pilgrimage, when arriving pilgrims viewed the Cathedral in the distance from this height, they were overcome with joy to be actually arriving at their goal. From here, it's only 5 km (3 miles) to the Cathedral.

After going to the Pilgrims Reception Office and getting our Compostelas issued, we had a celebration lunch next to the Mercado. 

Palas de Rei to Melide and then Arzua

Hello, everyone.  We've been a bit tired the last few days and posts need to be caught up.

We left Palas de Rei at around 7 as usual. We weren't in any rush because we had decided to split the Palas de Rei to Arzua stage into two halves. Melide, the town that has become synonymous with Pulpo a Feira (Galician style octopus) falls in the middle of the stage. It gives us two short, almost restful, days.

The only picture I took of Melide apparently, the bridge going into town.

We enjoyed some octopus and a restful half day before leaving in the morning. 

Jurassic style kale plants. They cut individual leaves off and allow the plant to continue growing. 

When the route marking people want to propose options--not to say confuse people--they set up two markers  at the branching point. 

 

We got into Arzua in the early afternoon.  We slept at O Santo, the albergue with ice cream cone sales at their front window.