Spain and Portugal in five nights

We received a group of four adults and two young children (Very Important Guests) in end April and I had planned a six days road trip. We set off to Salamanca for a night and drive towards West to Portugal, Porto for two nights and up north to Santiago de Compostela for one night and back to Madrid.

Salamanca is northwest of Spain, its old city is declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. The most popular attractions are the New Cathedral, Old Cathedral, Plaza Mayor and the University. The university is one of the oldest in Europe founded in 1218. The Plaza Mayor is a meeting place of all, people meet to eat or have coffee or just lazed around. It is indeed one of the most beautiful squares in Spain. At night, with the lights, it is even more stunning.

The new and old cathedral are just next to each other. The new cathedral underwent a restoration work and one of the artisans decided to 'sign' off his work with a contemporary symbol to represent the 20th century with an Astronaut. Can you spot it below?

The next morning, we set off to Porto. It is the second largest city after Lisbon. The old town at Ribeira was built on hills over looking the Douro River. And for wine lovers, you should know that Porto produces the famous Port wine, it is typically sweeter and usually serves as a dessert wine. Personally, I don't quite like it. We went for wine tasting at Taylor's, its also another enriching lesson for us. The night view of the old city overlooking the bridge and river is magnificent too.

Porto

Our hotel receptionist recommended us to visit Matosinhos for seafood. It is located about 9km from Porto. We drove to the beach and the children had some fun in the beach before we proceed to have a great seafood feast at the nearby restaurant, Proa.

The final destination of our road trip is to Santiago de Compostela. It is located in northwest of Spain. The old town is also another UNESCO World Heritage Site declared in 1985. 

We reached there in the late afternoon and had explored the city by foot and followed by a Galician dinner. In one of the gift shops, we met a lady who just reached Santiago by taking the route of Santiago de Compostela by foot. I believe catholics would probably know what it means.  She flew from Venezuela to Avila, Spain and had spent 11 days walking by foot to Santiago. Three cheers for her and her troops!  (she is in one of the photo below). Nowadays, people traveled by bicycles too.

Santiago de Compostela