To those not able to see images in the posts made for the last week, I think I have fixed the problem, again. Hopefully it stays fixed…
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After we left Coruna on Friday, we set “sail” (the National Geographic Endeavour is a motor-powered vessel with no masts, but it still “sails”) for St. Malo, France, two days and hundreds of miles away.
So as to ensure that we would not be too bored while spending a couple days at sea, a number of lectures and events were planned on board, and we participated in all of them, including:
- Several in-depth presentations about the HMS Victory, the ship upon which Admiral Nelson died during the battle of Trafalgar in October, 1805. Our presenters were Peter Goodwin and his wife Katy. Peter is the curator of the HMS Victory, and we had a chance to get a private tour conducted by Peter when we landed in Portsmouth yesterday. We learned a lot about naval warfare with sailing vessels and Nelson.
- Wine tasting featuring Spanish Rioja wines.
- A National Geographic GeoBee - a competitive quiz featuring questions about world geography and culture. The Traveling Richters tied for third place, meaning we all got GeoBee medals.
- Madeira tasting featuring three different Madeira wines.
- A nice presentation on the Basque culture and Basque whalers given by one of the naturalist staff members, Sean. Introduced the suggestion that the Basque people might be more direct genetic descendants from Cro Magnon man, and also pointed out that the Basque whalers were early visitors to North America, much like the Vikings were, although neither established permanent settlements.
- A lecture about bird species found in the areas we had visited and would be visiting.
- A discussion of the geology of the world as it relates to plate tectonics. The key takeaway point for us was that the “seven continents” we’ve all learned about are a fallacy when it comes to real geology, as there are actually about 25 various tectonically derived continents of various sizes (including a mini-continent which Italy is part of). The seven continents we’ve been taught are merely a human interpretation based on large land masses surrounded by water, with no actual regard for how things connect geologically.
- A photo slide show by a half dozen participants (including Krystyana and myself).
We also had a nice Philippines themed dinner during the time at sea.
All told, we were kept pretty busy between ports.
On Thursday, we had an early (and very tired) start, getting on Zodiacs for the first time as part of our disembarkation in the fishing village of Finesterra, Spain. Finesterra, also called Fisterra, is located in the Galician area of northwestern Spain. The name of the village allegedly comes from when the Romans arrived there a couple of millennia ago, and figured they had reached the end (fini) of the world (terra).
Boarding the Zodiacs was reasonably simple as the briefing we had received on the process the evening before was quite thorough, and all went according to plan. We’ve been told that the use of Zodiacs for getting to shore is the norm for most Lindblad trips, but as previously noted, we’ve been using docks and piers all along. Apparently we are also due to use Zodiacs tomorrow to leave St. Malo, as the tides will require the Endeavor to leave the dock before we return.
We boarded the ever present tour bus with our fellow horde of co-passengers, and headed off to Santiago de Compostela, a major Christian pilgrimage site featuring a cathedral which reportedly contains the remains of St. James, an Apostle of Christ. The remains were certified by a Bishop in the 9th century A.D., according to Isabella, our charming Galician tour guide. After Jerusalem and the Vatican, Santiago de Compostela is the third most visited site for Christian pilgrims.
Apparently, there are some very strict requirements for someone to be considered a proper pilgrim. First is that they must arrive on foot or by bicycle, but arrival by motorized conveyance is not permissible for pilgrim status. Pedestrian pilgrims need to travel at least 60 km to get to Santiago de Compostela, and get stamps certifying their pilgrimage walk at various checkpoints along the way. For those preferring to bicycle, the distance is 120 km, with checkpoint stamps required as well. Once a properly stamped pilgrim arrives in Santiago de Compostela they need to go to the Pilgrimage certification office and get an official certificate verifying that they are in fact a real pilgrim. Then, the first ten of such certified pilgrims each day can get a free meal at the Hostal hotel/restaurant.
Pilgrims also are supposed to be carrying scallop shells as a symbol of their pilgrimage, as in addition to being a useful tool for drinking and eating, it also represents a religious icon in Christianity (I didn’t quite grasp how or why that was, though, during our tour). Scallop shell motifs adorned the cathedral in many places in any event.
One thing that was very surprising to me about the pilgrimages was that pilgrims only needed to complete the journey to be certified as pilgrims, and not actually even enter the cathedral. It’s not always been that way, however, according to a historical account I later read, as pilgrims at one point had to go to a mass, visit the tomb of St. James, have their confession taken, and take communion, at a minimum. Now, however, the process seems less spiritual and more bureaucratic.
The drive to Santiago de Compostela was a bit drizzly and foggy – something that Isabella indicated was more the norm than not, as sunshine tended to be rare, and rain plentiful. But it was a beautiful drive, at least the part during which we were awake (as we had not had much sleep the previous night). Our arrival in Santiago de Compostela seemed to be at something that was a cross between a Greyhound bus station and a cruise ship terminal, seething with mostly oddly dressed individuals overladen with giant handbags, backpacks, and camera equipment, speaking in a myriad of mostly incomprehensible but strangely familiar languages, ourselves included. As we were herded along – amongst the hundreds of other tourists – we paused briefly at a restroom and then made our way to the square in front of the cathedral, being teased by free samples of almond cookies and almond cake, both of which have become traditional foods associated with the town.
In the square before the cathedral, we were introduced to the Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos, a hotel and dining facility which started life as the accommodations for visiting nobility; the administrative offices for the county of which Santiago de Compostela was the county seat; the old school building, and of course the cathedral itself. Isabella said the square and its surroundings represented the basic element of human life – education (the school), work (the administrative building), leisure (the Hostal), and spiritual (the cathedral).
We then visited the interior of the cathedral itself, which at first glance appeared large but very simple and plain, but as we walked on, that changed, with amazing (and somewhat expected) ornamentation in the area around the resting place of the remains of St. James, which was also surrounded by ornate private chapels.
The bureaucratic nature of modern day Santiago de Compostela came through inside the cathedral as well, where priests sat in confessional booths lining one wall of the cathedral ready to take confessions. Seeing this felt like a Monty Python moment brought to real life.
We were also told about how local cheese makers became political revolutionaries of sorts, when, in protest to a bishop having a sculptor give a statue a breast size reduction, started producing all their cheeses in the shape of a voluptuous female breast. That practice continues to this day.
The other thing the cathedral is famous for is the giant censer – called the “botafumeiro” – which is swung after communion is given at a mass, filled with incense. The censer weighs 55 kg and reaches speeds of 60 km an hour, and requires a handful of priests to swing it. The censer was apparently first put to use due the stink of the unwashed masses of pilgrims that visited the cathedral back in the days when pilgrims did not have access to the showers that modern hostels for pilgrims now offer. While the censer we saw did in fact emit a lot of smoke, we could smell no incense at all, so it appears to be just for show now, and not for masking human “fragrance”.
The kids got to witness part of a Catholic mass, a first for them. Bas said he found the experience boring and that he almost fell asleep, and I pointed out to him that that was not an uncommon reaction even for devout parishioners at a mass or sermon.
After the mass was over we enjoyed an aperitif of wine and appetizers at the Hostal and entertainment of local traditional dancing and music, which also includes the playing of a bagpipe, something Isabella attributed to Galicia’s heritage as a Celtic-based community. Lunch followed in a huge ornate room where every other chair was throne-like. We had a bit of time to wander after lunch, and went and purchased some previously sampled almond cake and a couple of handfuls of breast-shaped cheese.
Our bus ride out of town took us to La Coruna (the Crown), a larger coastal city where the Endeavour was able to dock. In order to delay our arrival at dock until the appointed boarding time of 6pm, we toured the city by bus and also got out at the Tower of Hercules, a structure originally built by the Romans, and now featuring 243 stairs, which Krystyana and I climbed in a few minutes (and which my thighs are now still in pain from, two days later). The top of the tower afforded us a very nice view of Coruna, but as we had only 20 minutes away from the bus, we had to hustle all the way back down the tower, and even so arrived a few minutes late.
Once back on board the Endeavour we had a “recap” – a briefing that is apparently a bit of a tradition on board Lindblad cruises, and which are supposedly summaries and further discussions of things we have seen that day. Of particular interest was a presentation by one of our naturalists about the collection of Lalique jewelry at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. Fascinating pieces, and we wish we had known about them before visiting Lisbon instead of days later. Historian Steve Blamires also provided an overview of the Celtic people in relationship to Galicia where we had just been.
Dinner was a BBQ served in the very chilly region of the back deck – a great location had it been sunny and warm out, but decidedly uncomfortable considering the exterior climate (slightly moist and windy, with temperatures in the low 50s).
We retired to bed late and tired, but well nourished – physically and mentally.
The Lindblad staff have posted two new daily reports on their site about the visit of the ship we are on, the National Geographic Endeavour, to two other ports of call:
On Wednesday, the day after we visited Lisbon we docked near Porto, Portugal. Porto is also known as Oporto as a result of linguistic mis-interpretation, as apparently when the Portuguese referred the city of Porto, they would precede it with an article “O”, and foreign traders therefore assumed the actually name of the city was Oporto.
The fame of Oporto, or at least the surrounding area, is that this is where the fortified wine known as Port is distributed from. According to our tour guide, there are 35 primary distributors of Port wine (all of whom are also producers of Port), and 35,000 total producers of Port. The large number of producers can be attributed to small mom and pop Port houses, many of whom sell their production to the larger Port distributors for blending into their larger productions. Until relatively recently, Port wine was shipping to London in casks and bottled there, but now Port is bottled primarily in Porto.
Before we docked in Porto, however, we spent the morning in the lounge of the Endeavour for a presentation by National Geographic photographer Massimo Bassano, a short and energetic Italian who has been a blast to travel with these last 10 days or so. Massimo shared some of his background and his storytelling approach to photography, as well as a video presentation on a long term stay with Curthusian monks in Italy. That was followed by photo critique by Massimo of both Krystyana’s and my photography. We both received kudos for our works and our sense of visual balance (i.e. “having an eye for composition”), as well as some suggestions for how to further improve our images. I hope to get some of our images up on this site when we have a faster (and cheaper) Internet connection.
After lunch we boarded a bus which took us around Porto and its environs, with the first stop being the Porto Cathedral, followed by a visit to the so-called Golden Church of St. Francis. The Church of St. Francis was built by the Franciscan monks after permission was granted in the 1300s from King John the First. We were told that John’s marriage to Phillipa of Lancaster resulted in the first official European agreement of cooperation between nations.
The inside of the St. Francis church is covered in gold, estimated to weigh be between 300 and 400 kilograms, which is a contradiction when considering that the Franciscans are an order of monks with a vow of poverty. However, it turns out that the funds for the ornate interior of the church came from wealthy patrons in the area around Porto in the form of donations in exchange for a promise that when such patrons and their families died, they would be buried in hallowed ground inside the church so that they would be “closer to heaven”.
During renovations in the 19th century, when laws in Portugal changed and started to forbid burials inside churches, the bones of those previously laid to rest within the floor of St. Francis were excavated and moved to the nearby consecrated grounds of the catacombs at St. Francis, where we were able to see the bones in person after we left the church.
Another thing that was interesting in the church was the rather graphic portrayal in the form of a three dimensional diorama of the beheading of Christian missionaries by Moors in Morocco and the crucifixion of others in Nagasaki, Japan. These missionaries were thus deemed martyred.
Once we had finished view the church and catacombs (sadly, we could not take photos without getting kicked out), we re-boarded the bus for our final destination, the House of Sandeman in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro river from Porto (although arguably still considered part of Porto).
At Sandeman, we were given a tour of the facilities of Porto’s oldest Port house, started in 1790, and now one of the best known names in Port wine. Port wine is wine whose fermentation is stopped before all the sugars have been converted to alcohol, and then fortified with neutral wine spirits to maintain sweetness as well as boost the alcohol content of Port to about 20%. There are three basic types of Port: White, which is crisper and recommended as an aperitif; tawny, which is brownish red in color and aged in barrels before being bottled; and ruby, which has a dark red and burgundy color, and is used for bottle aged vintage Port. After our tour we were treated to a tasting of white and tawny ports. The kids tried them too but weren’t much enthralled. We ended up buying a vintage port “sampler” of three 375ml bottles, the oldest of which was from 1994 at the company store in the tasting area.
After a small bit of something sweet at the neighboring café, we hooked up with Massimo as well as new trip friends Gretchen (from Bermuda), and Natalie and Bruce (from Oahu, Hawaii) and went on a walking tour of Gaia to see the back streets and take pictures, finally ending up at Adega & Presuntaria Transmontana 2, a local restaurant recommended to us by several people.
As soon as we sat down we started being served a wide range of local Tapas, including a cold cut plate, local cheeses, olives, marinated pig’s ears, pickled white anchovies, and pork livers. We topped this off with the house red wine, a “vino tinto” of the Douro river area. While we were not particularly wild about the pig’s ears (too chewy), everything else was pretty good. We ended with a large dessert buffet and some more twilight photography before returning back to the Endeavour, sated in many ways.
Looks like the official daily expedition reports prepared by the staff of the ship we’re on, Lindblad’s National Geographic Endeavour, are slowly starting to trickle onto Lindblad’s web site.
You can look at them here. Make sure to click the date of the entry to read the complete report for that day. There are presently three days posted:
We’ll post our own entry here on The Traveling Richters for today’s nice visit to Porto, Portugal in the next couple of days as we have to get up very early in the morning to go see the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela tomorrow, and we’re losing an hour due to a time zone change going from Portugal to Spain (we will be six hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast).
