Big celebrations

Galician National Day & Feast of St James

Today ended up like a spare day, one of relaxation, preparation and documentation, reviewing and deleting photos.  After spending the morning indoors I wandered out for a walk and lunch.  Last night an octopus salad had caught my eye so I was keen to have it.  It turned out gorgeous with tuna and egg on lettuce, tomatoes and onions.

After more time indoors in the afternoon I wandered out after my in-room dinner to the cathedral square around 2100.  Tomorrow is the Galician National Day and also Feast of St James (Santiago)  and there will be big celebrations tonight.

The crowds in the alleys of the old town and various squares were unreal.  There were some police with riot gear for just in case, I guess. Helicopters hovered around, perhaps filming the area for TV.  I tried to kill time so that it would be dark enough for me to witness the celebrations.  From the video of previous years, there will be fireworks, light and laser shows.

Some singing and traditional music commenced at 2200.  The bagpipe seems part of their traditional instruments here.  At 2210, it was still light, so I gave up and walked back to my room.  I told myself that it was nothing I hadn’t seen before at my age, especially when they had shown the previous years’ snippets on the big screen.  My priority is to be able to get up for tomorrow morning’s early flight.

In bed, around 2315 I heard one bang and then nothing for about 10 mins.  Then came the fireworks.  They put on a good show for about 20 mins which I could see from my room.  I also caught what seemed to be a lit-up ferris wheel from my room but it wasn’t anything I saw on my walks.  I wondered if it was a virtual one from the light show.  With the aid of a sleeping pill, I fell asleep after.

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End note on this visit to Spain

My itinerary this trip was dictated by a cheap flight to Bilbao and the availability of a redemption ticket to Bogota.  I managed to make the redemption commence in Santiago for a tad more compared to Madrid.

Hence, I had locked in an overland journey from Basque Country (Bilbao and San Sesbastian) to Cantabria (Santander), Asturia (Oviedo) and finally Galicia (Santiago de Compostela).  It was good to see the local languages still being maintained in Basque, Asturia and Galicia.  The Cantabrian language doesn’t have the same level of official reognition and is more at risk.

As for Basque, the separatist movement “ETA”, official ended their resistance in 2018.