Saturday, June 18, 2011

June 18, 2011: Santiago - Sunshine Coast, Paella

Today was rainy in Santiago, so Eugenio decided we should drive south in search of sunshine. We toured along the Galician coast, in the Pontevedra area. And, as hoped for, it was sunny, although still fairly cool and quite windy.

We walked along the shore and enjoyed a leisurely lunch of paella and barnacles. Eugenio was particularly excited about the barnacles - they're so expensive that he doesn't often order them, but today there was a good special on them. They looked bizarre, but tasted quite good! They're so expensive because they're very dangerous to harvest - diving in rough water, risking being smashed up against rocks covered in all sharp, pointy bits.

The cool weather deceived us - we really all should have been wearing sunscreen, and by the end of the day we were getting quite pink. We drove back to Santiago and up the nearby viewpoint, to see a lovely view of the city below.

Sunshine coast!

The undulating lines of this sidewalk created a powerful optical illusion that the ground below was not flat at all - actually rather disorienting to walk on.

Mark eats a barnacle (but not whole - he just pulled the meaty bits out with his teeth and left the rest of it). Doesn't it look kind of like a dragon's foot (and not edible at all)?

Eugenio contemplates our paella (and unwittingly acquires a sunburn).

Gorgeous day, but no wonder we got sunburnt - still cool enough in the sunshine that I'm wearing a cardigan.

My foot in the ocean.

Rounded rocks at low tide.

A striking tree - the pattern of branches coming off makes star shapes.

An amazing sand sculpture on the beach.

Saddest Porsche ever - all torn apart by driving over a parking post. There was a huge crowd gathered, transfixed by the painful spectacle, but the owner was nowhere to be seen.

A giant sculpture in pieces of a sun-bathing woman - Eugenio is standing on top, and marks head pokes up from the neck section.

Santiago from above. See the City of Culture development in behind it?

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