On Monday morning we reluctantly had to leave Santiago de Compostela although we had a laugh seeing the sign leading down to the parking garage…..
….”acceso peons” ….who are you calling a peon!!!
While trying to get out of the city we ran into a bit of bother with Gwyneth. We are thinking that she may not be as well organized for Spain as she is for Portugal. Once she told us to “turn right here” but it was a walkway and not a road.
Finally, we started following street signs and heading in the direction that we THOUGHT we should go and eventually she caught up with us. The bottom line is that after driving for 20+ minutes, we looked up and saw the cultural center that we had basically walked to the day before!!
Michael stayed calm and collected thru all of the vagaries of trying to leave town…..
….but the scene in the backseat was a bit different…..
We finally made our way out of the city and headed for the city of A Coruña. We chose this city because one of Michael’s colleagues was from there and had greatly extolled its virtues, including an ancient Roman lighthouse!!
While driving on the highway we had a couple of “incidents”…..
Firstly we came to a toll road where you had to take a ticket as you passed. The car in front of us missed the ticket so they stopped the car, a lady in the back passenger seat hopped out and pulles the ticket and then scurried back to the car.
Secondly, one of the toll booths was marked as “direcciones”, where you could ask for directions along your route? He asked where we were going and Michael thought he was asking where we had come from.. The gentleman looked quite perplexed until Michael explained that we were heading TO Coruna but a relieved look appeared on his face when he realized that he didn’t have to turn us completely around!!!
The city of A Coruña was very sweet and we followed along a fun beach road to reach the lighthouse…
The lighthouse is also known as the Tower of Hercules, was built 1900 years ago and is the oldest Roman lighthouse still in use.
We waited for a while to be able to climb to the top, but the wait became longer and longer so we finally decided to just walk around the property and capture some of the sights……
I loved this guy……
….especially the dog sleeping at his feet…..
The sights heading toward the harbor were enthralling…..
…..and I loved this huge compass built into the rock…..
There were tile designs in between each compass point with this one being my favorite…..
And, I am always a sucker for patches of white and yellow flowers (my bridal bouquet was made of daisies)…..
We returned to the car and drove all the way around the harbor, ending up on the point opposite to the Tower.
While driving, we passed this fountain and I snapped a photo out of the car window. It is not a great picture, but it was a very cool fountain with two surfers riding the wave…..
At the end of the point, we came to this huge obelisk……
It had pictures on the sides but they were very indistinct.
We walked along the rocks for a bit, exclaiming how blue the water seemed…..
We reluctantly returned to the car and headed back south and into Portugal. For the most part, this trip was uneventful although we did have a few issues getting out of the city and onto the highway.
After we arrived home, I felt the need for a good walk so headed down the beach, walking about 1-1/2 miles. This was the furthest that I had been and was surprised to look up and see that there was a fort (which is now a restaurant)……
A little further took me to a beautiful little church that we returned to on Tuesday to take photos of……
The inside was rustic and sweet….
…..with a gorgeous painted ceiling that was easy to miss unless you were looking for it…..
Outside there was a sensational cross and mast……
On Tuesday I had two driving adventures….
Firstly, while driving home from taking Michael to work I had to stop at a crosswalk. This is not unusual, but the fact that it was a dog waiting for the traffic to stop was not the norm. Myself and another car waited as he calmly crossed!
Also, as I was driving out to pick Michael up, I came across a tractor pulling a trailer and trying to back the trailer into a very narrow gate opening. He made several attempts but his front wheels kept hitting the stone wall surrounding the road, keeping him from being able to turn properly. I watched as he made a few more passes and was amazed that he was able to move the trailer into the gate. 
At this point he needed to pull out again and straighten things up but there were several cars waiting so he just stopped and motioned for me to go ahead. But, to my eye there really wasn’t enough room for my car to go thru!!! So, with Diane watching the right mirror and me staring at the left one, I VERY slowly made my way thru the opening. As I cleared the tractor I looked up and saw a truck driver sitting in a vehicle on the other side patiently motioning that I had plenty of room. Maybe it was plenty to him but surely not to me!!!!
After we picked Michael up, I wanted to take all of them to the haunting cemetery that I had found on our first day at CIBIO. We enjoyed walking thru it again and came away with a few stunning photos…..
Our big meal for Tuesday was a restaurant that we had visited early into our stay. The Chef was once again at the grill……
….using nothing but sea salt to turn these dishes into scrumptious delicacies…..
The restaurant was very busy when we arrived and we were impressed at the lengths that the owner went to in order for us to have a nice table!!!
Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, Diane and I decided to visit the #1 sight in Vila do Conde (at least per Trip Advisor)……the Style Outlet!!!! The mall was a modern, well designed area with a lot of top name stores, however prices seemed to be similar to the US so we didn’t purchase much.
We did enjoy a walk thru the shoe store and marveled at these very popular shoes….
The clunky sole and heel is extremely popular here, even in boots or dress shoes. It will be interesting to see if this is the newest trend in Europe and whether it will be what we are wearing in a year or two!!!
Our favorite store was called BriCor. It was a HUGE store with clothing on one side and a mixture on the other side rivaling Home Depot, Walmart and Pet Smart all in one place!!!
It was a fun outing to end off our day together!!!
One thought on “Two days of driving fun….or not”
Well done surviving all the driving adventures!!The lighthouse is stunning and what an amazing history.I like the fountain with the surfing sculptures.I can see how it would be very easy to eat out all the time.