Day 38 and 39. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

This is a museum of modern art. My ankle did not allow me to stay for too long so I came back twice. The space, and much of the art, are marvelous.

  

How can you not be intrigued by a building that looks like this?

This big dog is outside with flowers painted all over him. 

From an upper level, looking down on a bunch of tulips and a bunch of people. 

Part of their permanent collection Richard Serrat's The Matter of Time. These plates of steel are about three inches thick and 14 feet high. Notice the people walking around and in. 

A giant spider. 

And I guess this is the end of the blog. I come home on Saturday, June 25. The end of this adventure. The beginning of whatever comes next. All I can say is that I'm so ready to be back home. 

Day 38. Trip to Bilbao

It is difficult to express my delight as the dry plains of Madrid yielded to the green hills of what I find I have come to think of as "my Spain" the northern area through which the Camino France's runs.

A stained glass window in the Bilbao train station. 

Day 37. Trip to Toledo

I took a half day bus trip to Toledo, because this is one of the cities that still shows lots of signs of the time when Spain was largely ruled by the Muslims and there were Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities coexisting.

The Spanish do like thei pork and ham. These are ham sandwiches stuffed with pork. 

One of the most beautiful and interesting buildings in Toledo was the White Synagogue. 

These are alabaster windows. 

The detailed decorative carving at the top of the columns in the white synagogue was striking. 

The most disturbing part of the day was the attitude of the guide. She seemed to regard the expulsion of Jews, Muslims, and Gypsies from the country and the establishment of the Inquisition in 1492 as something that had been a beneficial and necessary thing. She also kicked a Sikh member of our party out of an active church since he could not remove his turban. "I understand that it is because you are a Hindi, but this is a Christian holy place so...out". 

He left graciously, but when several of us approached him later to express our dismay at the  actions of the guide, he pointed out that Sikh holy places always have four doors to symbolize their openness to everyone. It was hard to know how to respond to the guide's actions. 

Day 36. El Prado and the Mercado de San Miguel

I got a late start in the morning by waiting until my roommates checked out so that I could claim one of their lower bunks. Not going to make that climb for the next two nights here.

As expected then the line for the museum was quite long. What I did not expect was for the museum staff to seek me out and allow me to jump the line because of my walking sticks. I felt a little fraudulent taking them up on this but about two hours or less in the museum did me in, so I was quite grateful.

They stopped me from taking pictures in the museum, so I have little to show.  One of the works that really struck me was one I am quite familiar with, Fra Angelico's Annunciation. Picture here. Either I had seen other versions of this, or they had been cropped to show only the main scene. Anyway, this version of the scene shows Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden in the background--the problem to which this moment bears the solution. Across the bottom are key scenes from Matys life--a scene that might be Joseph discovering that she is pregnant, visiting Elizabeth, the birth of Jesus, the presentation in the temple, and the dormition of Mary at the end of her life. I really liked the increased richness of the painting with all the additional detail

I enjoyed the museum but was tired and sore quickly. In the evening I discovered the Mercado de San Miguel. Think a smaller version of the Reading Market in Philadelphia.

A display of different olives. 

Sausages in paper twists like one might sell candied nuts. 

Various artistic tapas. 

Day 35. Train Ride to Madrid

As I walked to the train early in the morning, the old city was shrouded in mist and looking lovely though my picture didn't catch what I was seeing

The train ride was uneventful. The landscape gradually shifted from the green hills of Galicia to the dry plains in the middle part of Spain surrounding Madrid.

As the comedy team of Flanders and Swann noted, despite everything you may have heard to the contrary, the rain in Spain stays almost invariably in the hills. 

Arrival in Madrid was a shock. This is a big city! (Duh!). With two main railroad stations, both a metro and an intra city rail system. I was nowhere near my hotel, and unprepared to navigate. But the information center got me straightened out and I found my way to The Hat, a hostel fairly near the sites I thought I might like to see. This is a hostel and I'm paying for a room with two bunk beds. They've given me an upper bunk, which proves torturous to climb into given my ankle. The last step is about 18 inches high and I have a hard time with it. Tomorrow I'll arrange for a lower bunk. I'm glad I paid for the smaller room. There are huge tour groups of college and teenagers using the big rooms and I'm seeing some serious horseplay through the windows in the hallway. My room is older young career folks, wanting to save money while traveling. On the Camino I was frequently in rooms with many fellow travelers but people were extremely courteous to letting fellow peregrinos get rest. We all knew how exhausted we felt. 

The Plaza Mayor is right up the street from me and I got dinner there. 

Day 34. The End of the World

Here I am at the end of the world, Finisterre in Spanish and Fisterra in Galician which is the official language of this part of Spain. The Romans decided this was the end of the line, as far west as one could go on land.  It's also been an end point for the Camino in addition to Santiago and pilgrims used to burn their clothes here.

The fishing village of Fistera. I ran into fellow pilgrims here and had lunch with them. J 

These grain storage bins are all over Galicia, in everyone's backyard if the house is old. They are no longer used according to our guide. I was particularly struck by what she said about the symbols on top. The cross is obvious but the other things flanking it are a symbol for the fertility of the fields!  A pretty old symbol, if true. 

Day 33. Santiago day 2

I spent most of the morning planning out the rest of my stay in Spain. Walked to the train station and bought tickets from here to Madrid on Monday morning and fron Madrid to Bilbao on Thursday. Came back and sat on the front steps of the Albergue (not allowed in the rooms from 9:30-1:00), using the Internet to book hotel rooms--a hostel for Madrid, a real hotel for Bilbao. Booked a half day tour of Toledo from Madrid. Wasn't able to book a bus tour of Fonisterre in the morning, but ran into someone in the afternoon who happily signed me up.

Then I set out to be a tourist. I toured the Cathedral and discovered that I have had enough of churches for right now. I skipped the Cathedral museum. They are repairing the front of the Cathedral and I think some of the traditional pilgrim stopping points were in the area being repaired.

I was amused by all the little cherubs playing around the organ pipes. I wonder who decided that angels should be represented by naked babies. And I wonder if this picture of baby angels has been comforting through the years to parents who have had babies die. I don't believe people become Angels after death, but if you thought so, maybe baby angels would be a comforting idea. 

Gold, gold, and more gold. I'm tired of it for now. 

A closer look at the botafumero that they swing. 

Probably the most interesting thing that I saw was the bishop, a full hour after the pilgrim's mass was over, chatting with a pair of pilgrims. I don't know who they were or what they were talking about but it felt like the man must have a pastors heart to be so engaged with individuals. 

Everywhere I go I am running into people who recognize me and remember me from earlier in the trip. "You made it!  We wondered about you. When did you get here?"