The Road to Santiago (from the Porto Airport:)

The next trip has arrived, another that has been in planning and we have been anticipating for months. A trip to warm weather! Jeremy, Lissa, Erin and I headed out on a Saturday morning earlier this month for a six night adventure from Santiago to Lisbon.

After getting our car from the Sixt rental company, we stopped at a small, untouristy town about 30 minutes north of Porto called Vila do Conde. Park near the harbour and find the place pictured below. Also cross your fingers that someone english speaking sits next to you as we did, since nobody who works at the restaurant speaks english and you are left trying to choose your food from a chalk board on the side of the restaurant. Needless to say, the grilled fish was unbelievable.

Following the restaurant, we made our way to Santiago and settled into our hotel, which was a great find as it was right on the edge of the pedestrian-only zone and we had a nice little balcony that overlooked the city. Santiago itself is a great city; not nearly as big as one would imagine, the old town was especially nice. Pilgrims have been traveling to Santiago from Lourdes, France on perhaps the most famous pilgrimage route in the world, making their way to the Santiago Cathedral where St. James' (supposedly a brother of Jesus) remains are buried. In place of actual roads in the old town are much smaller lanes that you can easily envisaging existed as such during the middle ages. The church is beautiful and we wandered around for a while before settling down at a great little restaurant down a narrow street. The vibe in the street was great as we had a great table with great finger food and wine to top it all off. Following dinner, we wandered back to the church to check it out at night and heard a great group of traditional Spanish singers that were entertaining the tourists. We then made it to 16, a restaurant recommended by the NYT and had a killer grilled octopus and some Albrino wine to end off the night. The following morning we said goodbye to Santiago and went to Cambados, a coastal town well known for the production of Albrino wines (Lissa's favorite). We had a wine tour at Fefinanes, where the very friendly wine maker gave us a tour and tasting. The property is hundreds of years old and has been in the family for equally as long. The winery is basically an old castle/manor that is really beautiful!Following the tour, we went to the wine makers cousin's place next door, where they distilled unique and tasty liquors, which of course we sampled and purchased some! Following the tour we had lunch at a nice spot in Cambados and then made it to Porto (without getting lost)!