Our Camino To Santiago

Drawn by its history, international community and beautiful architecture, we took advantage of a sunny weekend to borrow a car from Nuria, a co-worker at El Batán, and roadtripped to Galicia. The province, lying west of Asturias and north of Portugal, appears even greener than Asturias, if you can believe it. Gallego is spoken widely as Galicia´s second official language. The famous pilgrimage route, "El Camino de Santiago", begins from a multitude of cities throughout Europe (namely France, Germany and England), and ends in Finisterre on the Atlantic coast. The trail easily recognized, marked by bronze shells that creep down the sidewalk in front of our apartment in Oviedo.
Forced by time restraints to take the less adventurous, direct route, we explored our gorgeous neighbor to the west and were wowed by its fusion of tradition and travelers; mingling with international backpackers and settlers alike, we found Santiago to be a wonderful, strikingly different, piece of Spain.
Our Tunisian wiseman for the weekend, Chebbi, owns "La Comida Restaurante" in Santiago with his Italian wife, Margarita. He said the name came from the restaurant's most important aspect- la comida (the food)- but we beg to differ! We thoroughly enjoyed sharing stories with the couple for a long night, and then again the following day for a Greek-Tunisian-Italian meal. La Comida's cordero (lamb) had Ryan wishing Santiago was closer to Oviedo! "The sun doesn't fall," Chebbi informs as night approaches. "It hides." Too true! Soon we'll be watching the sun hide behind the Indian Himalayas!