Last night we went on a tapas tour with Context Travel, a company we’ve used in Paris, Rome, Florence, Athens, NYC, and Boston for unique, focused tours led by docents who are truly experts in their field. Helena works for Iberico, a company that experts cured meats like jamon iberico, a cured ham from special pigs who eat a diet composed almost entirely of acorns. It is similar to prosciutto but the fat melts in your mouth. It is also much more expensive, upwards of 100+ euros per kilo. Our group of six was quite eclectic and included an Australian couple, both entrepreneurs, on an extended European trip that includes(get this!) biking a portion of the Camino Portugues, and a couple from Texas, the husband a flight surgeon for NASA and the wife who has an extensive business and public relations background who know “flips” houses a la Chip and Joanna Gaines! After sampling varied cured meats, pickled veggies, octopus, smoked tuna, tortilla espanola, croquettes and tripe accompanied by (many) glasses of wine and beer, we bypassed a dessert of helado (ice cream) for glasses of vermouth from a bar that’s been around for a couple hundred of years. They served vermouth from a tap, not a bottle. Great conversation added to a late evening as we stumbled back to the hotel well after midnight.
Today (Wednesday) we had a private tour with an Irishman, Rory O’Brian, that concentrated on Madrid’s role in the Spanish Civil War, from the Republican’s (anti-Fascist/Franco standpoint. We visited sites that played a crucial role in this very tumultuous time for Spain. Of course we ended the session in a bar discussing current American and European politics over a beer.
Then we were off to Ponferrada on the train from Madrid’s Chamartin station. Convenient, energy efficient, clean and punctual – Amtrak can’t hold a candle to the European train systems! We arrived close to 10 pm, checked in, had dinner (in Spain, dinner traditionally starts around 10 pm) – local specialties ( i. e. meat and roasted peppers and fried potatoes and Trujilla – a fried bread in chocolate sauce with orange sorbet. After dinner, we walked out onto the main plaza to find a ceremony of the Knights of Templar – in the early years of the Camino, in the Middle Ages, they financially supported the peregrinos and there is a Templar castle in Ponferrada- taking place, with much pomp and ceremony.
A good night’s rest, some down time tomorrow and then we’re off on Friday to begin our Camino.
Camino Musings 