Categoria: Spain

On the footsteps of Quixote: beat down the windmills!

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Do you remember the foolish stories of Don Quixote? Do you remember when he was battling against windmills? This is one of the chapters of Cervantes’s book I like the most and I have read it over and over. At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as don Quixote saw them he said to his squire: “Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I

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Santiago de Compostela and Some Weird Tangles of History

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Praza da Quintana, Santiago Santiago de Compostela’s Praza da Quintana is not only a simple town square. Located at the back of the Cathedral, it’s one of the oldest and most historical squares of Santiago. The Quintana is physically divided into two parts by a large staircase. The upper part is called Quintana dos vivos. If you are at the top of the stairs and look down you see what is called Quintana dos Mortos, and was once a graveyard. Go there in the middle of the night and you’ll be able to see the dead, at least that’s what the legend

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In the land of Pallozas

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O Cebreiro Cebreiro, the land of Pallozas, is the gateway to Galicia for those who follow the Way of Saint James. They climb from the Meseta up to over 1.300 metres in height, the highest point of the surrounding mountains, dark and gloomy. This is also the “rain divide” between the wet Galicia and dry central Spain. Here the clouds stop their ride from the Atlantic ocean. They’ve been pouring water over the whole Galicia and the last drops fall here. Well, they aren’t really only drops. It rains cats and dogs very often. Pallozas It is also cold, up

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Open air music

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The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is surrounded by squares; between them, there are other passages, arches, and stairs. The end of the Way Plaza do Obradoiro is the stage of the daily ritual of the arrival of the pilgrims, who followed the Way of Saint James, and finally – after a hundred and hundred miles on foot – turn around the last corner and are in front of the Baroque façade of the Cathedral. On the left, there is an arch where usually street artists find shelter from wind rain or (rarely!) sun. Bagpipes, flute or guitar players, mimes

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