Food in Santiago, Madrid, and Toledo

So, I figured I’d cram food from Santiago, Madrid, and Toledo into one post, partly because they fit together nicely and two are fairly short, but mostly I’m ‘cause I’m a wee bit lazy.

Santiago

We only ate three real meals in Santiago. Dinner the first night was the fanciest and, true to form for me, the one I enjoyed the least. I got the roast lamb, which was so-so, but really dry and waaaay too much. Thought that was funny, as most meat in Spain moo’s (or baa’s or bleats) when you cut into it. Dessert (chestnuts cooked in chocolate with whipped cream) was excellent, though.

Lunch the next day was HYSTERICAL. The restaurant/bar we stopped at was managed, waited, bused, and cooked for by one Spanish man who didn’t speak a lick of English and didn’t have the time (or patience) to repeat himself. I asked him to repeat the options for the first plate, and he just patted me on the shoulder and said (in Spanish), “I bring you the soup. It’s good.” Then scurried off. He did the same thing for the second plate (grilled ham). Funniest part was later. I understand Spanish quite well when I’m not on the spot (i.e. it’s not being spoken to me), so when the table of tourists next to us was ordering, I heard him say, “I’ll bring you the ham. It’s good! I just ordered it for them (points at us) too!” Dessert was Santiago tart, which is like a slightly lemony, slightly nutty pound cake covered in powdered sugar.

Dinner that night was tasty, if somewhat hard to find. It turns out the ‘third holiest city on Earth’ kinda shuts down on Sundays, so we had trouble finding an open restaurant. We ended up just eating at the café in our B&B. Sean and I split an order of croquettes (one of my favorite things ever, by the way), and I got an order of morcello, Spanish sausage made from blood and rice).

Lunch at the train station the next day was basic, though special, ‘cause it was my first Iberian ham of the trip. I kinda had an addiction to that stuff last time I was in Spain.

Madrid

Dinner the first night in Madrid was…interesting. Asked our hostelier for a rec (which had worked PHENOMENALLY up til then) and he sent us to a strip of Indian restaurants nearby. Now, I love Indian food, but the Spanish don’t really like spices and ABHOR spiciness (‘spicy sauce’ in Spain means ‘tangy’ to someone from the States). You can’t really do Indian food that way. The curry was ‘meh’, not bad, but way too sweet. The wine also tasted like it was equal parts bad white wine and water.

Lunch the next two days was just bocadillos (sandwiches on crusty baguettes) at cafés en route to the art museums. Tasty, but nothing special. The dinners were both great, though. For my birthday, we went to an Asturian restaurant called Casa Lustra, that I’m convinced was trying to kill me. Got the Menu de la Casa, which was a pot of Asturian stew (chorizo sausage, pork fat, beans, and kale), grilled salmon, a half-bottle of wine, and a Asturian pastry (whose name I didn’t pick up). Quite tasty. Especially since Sean bought it for me =D

Next day was less tasty but more fun. We went to the Market de San Miguel and wandered around grabbing up tapas. Was a bit pricier than going to a restaurant, but it was a lot of fun just wandering around picking stuff that looked tasty. I got seafood paella (meh; he scooped some up and microwaved it), venison sausage (meh; microved again), tinto de verano (dry red wine mixed with lemon soda on ice; sounds weird, but is really tasty), a salmon and crab salad pintxo (tapa on toast; not bad), a pistachio cookie (om nom nom), and lemon gelato with chocolate chips (=D).

Toledo, we pretty much skipped food for whatever reason. Only thing we had to eat was some espresso and pastries at a bakery (which I think had its baked goods supplied by nuns in a convent), where Sean got a waffle with ice cream and I got a mazapan (no, not marzipan) cake. When we got back, we were kinda starving, so we went to a tapas bar called Lateral that the front desk recommended. Awful waiters (the guy said it was over an hour wait outside, without mentioning that the inside of the restaurant was empty), but great food. We got jamon croquettes, patatas bravas, stuffed peppers, and a pintxo that was essentially tuna salad on toast, except it was made with bonito instead of tuna, and had grilled asparagus on top. For dessert, I got “crepes castellanos con dulce de leche,” which is a fancy way of saying mini pancakes topped with caramel and whipped cream.

Don't know what my last meal in Madrid will be, but sammiches at the train station are a strong contender.

Porto's done!

Hi!

So, all my stuff from Porto is up. All photos uploaded (finally) to flickr, and no more new blog posts. Link to the album is here.

Might have one more food-related post for Santiago, but I still need to get the photos from there up too.

Santiago de Compostela

Hi all!

As of writing this, we’re just leaving Santiago de Compostela for Madrid via train.

By far, Santiago was our slowest city so far, and was probably the least touristy place we’ll be visiting, once you got about two blocks away from the Cathedral. It was very nice, but a HUGE change of pace from Lisbon and Porto, both of which had a lot of young people (and a lot of young travelers) and the restaurants, cafés, and energy that tend to follow them.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. First off, quick crash course on Santiago:

Santiago is Spanish and Galician for “Saint James,” and “Compostela” is the old Galician for essentially “resting place.” So, Santiago de Compostela is basically “St. James’ burial place.” So named because it is, in fact, where St. James is buried. It’s considered the third holiest city on earth, after Rome and Jerusalem, and every year thousands of pilgrims hike the Camino de Santiago (“Way/Walk of St. James”) from other Spanish cities to see his tomb. People walk from as far as France, but a popular starting point for foreigners is from Ourense, which is about 100 miles outside of Santiago.

St. James spent a large portion of his life preaching to the Gauls in the Iberian peninsula, so after he was martyred by Herod in Jerusalem, his followers brought his remains back to what is now Galicia. The history behind the bones is long and complicated, with them being lost and found a few times before they were finally properly entombed where they are today.

Now, Santiago de Compostela is the third largest cathedral in the world, behind St. Peter’s in the Vatican and the Duomo in Florence. It really is massive in a way that is hard to capture in photos. Walking past while looking up at its towers, you don’t even really notice the parallax that you’d expect, because they’re just so far away.

Inside, the cathedral is gorgeous. Laid out in a typical cross shape, the area behind the altar is full of engraved and gilded carvings and statues. Those statues of cherubs, by the way, are about 3-4 times as big as I am, at least. The cathedral is also famous for its enormous censer, which during large services they fill with about 40 lbs. of charcoal and incense. St. James tomb itself is actually fairly understated, which I liked. To get to it, you just walk down a set of stone steps just behind the altar, and there’s a little unadorned room with a kneeler in it, facing a set of iron bars. On the other side, through a little hall is where St. James bones are kept in a silver reliquary, which is the only real show of wealth in the room, aside from the flowers in front of it. It was very solemn, which I liked. I lit a candle and made a donation for my Nana at St. James’ tomb.

The rest of the city is fairly small and sleepy (once you get away from the restaurants and jewelry stores catering to pilgrims and tourists near the cathedral). It’s also funny to say, but Santiago is FULL of older people. There aren’t many people in their 20s or 30s there. Most of the pilgrims, for whatever reason, are in their 40s and 50s. There were even a few old codgers that were my grandparents’ age.

Well…okay, I should say that Santiago is NORMALLY small and sleepy and full of codgers and whatnot. Apparently we got there right at the end of some big mountain bike race that culminated in a rap concert on our first night. All those folks were gone by the next day, so it made for a rather amusing difference.

Not that we were really out and about enough to notice, though. Sean and I took a little vacation from our vacation and pretty much spent the day in our room working on our computer tans. We still weren’t caught up from the jet lag, and since Santiago doesn’t have much aside from the cathedral, we just kinda bummed about for a day and a night.

Anyway, our first night, we got in around 6, dropped our stuff, and went straight to the cathedral, since we weren’t sure if it would be open to the public on a Sunday. Turns out it was, but better safe than sorry. Anyway, we got back, I posted a few new posts, we went to dinner at a Galician restaurant, and went to bed.

The next day, we went to the train station to book our tickets to Madrid, then got lunch at a TINY little Spanish bar that was waited, bused, and cooked for by one guy. The food was forgettable, but the dude serving us was hilarious. Didn’t speak a word of English, and didn’t have the patience to speak Spanish slowly, so he kept ordering for us (and for everyone else in the restaurant too).

After that, we came back and crashed ‘til dinner, and even then, we just went to the café in our bed and breakfast. In our defense, that was pretty much our only option, since ‘the third holiest city on earth’ kinda shuts down on Sunday. Who’d a thunk it?

Anyway, we got up this morning and caught the train. A nice quiet stopover before the whirlwind that Madrid and Barcelona are sure to be =)

Santiago hostel

Since Santiago’s not exactly a hub for college-age tourists, rooming there (at least the kind we’re staying in) is very cheap. So, Sean and I sprang for a bed and breakfast instead. It was only about 5 euro extra per night, but it meant we got a private room to ourselves, with our own bathroom. We had a floor-to-ceiling window which we could open and look out on the street below. The walls were also cool; they were made of stone and mortar, and for whatever reason, people had stacked euro pennies in nooks and crannies in the mortar. Couldn’t figure out why they did it, but made me smile nonetheless =)

Oh, and it also had a restaurant/café downstairs (the ‘breakfast’ in ‘bed and breakfast’), which was quite tasty, and saved our butts on Sunday. The waiters didn’t speak a word of English aside from the numbers on the menu, but we still managed to get by.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a quiet, small place in Santiago, Casa Felisa definitely gets a thumbs-up. It’s easy walking to the bus and train stations, and is just down the street from the cathedral square.

Photos

Small hiccup in uploading photos last night, so only like a quarter of them made it up. The rest of the Porto photos should be up soon (uploading now).

Oh, and I'm sorting through the ones from Santiago too right now.

EDIT: ...okay, apparently Spanish hostels just don't like to spring for the good wifi, as it's taking freaking forever to just upload one or two photos. So, addendum: the photos MIGHT be up soon.

Lisbon's done!

Hi all.

Nothing new coming from Lisbon. The Sintra photos are uploaded, and I'm out of things to say about it, I think. Shocking, I know.

Have a few other things to blog about in Porto, and need to upload all the photos, but that'll have to wait til tomorrow. It's almost 2am here, and I'm going to pass out.

Now, on to Spain!