If you love a beautiful beach you'll love this post

More pictures from my Europe trip! These are still from our first week in Galicia, Spain.
The first few are from Santiago de Compostela, famous for it's lichen covered cathedral and the hordes of pilgrims that arrive to the site via the Way of Saint James.

You can see a bigger version of each image just by clicking on them.

The amazing cathedral is the main attraction of Santiago de Compostela.

I hadn't ever seen a cathedral so covered in moss and lichen, it made the building even more interesting and steeped in history.

The other side of the cathedral.

The interior of the Cathedral. The interior wasn't any different than most Roman Catholic interiors of the time. What's really cool is the censer - see it hanging from the rope? It's now only brought out for high days - but one of it's original uses was to help mask the smell from hundreds of unwashed pilgrims. It's the largest of it's kind in the world.


An entrance to a charming garden cafe where we enjoyed a cafe con leche after touring the cathedral.

This map shows Santiago de Compostela on the coast, and the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James)
Read more about Santiago de Compostela and the Way of Saint James.
map via World Nomads

Now for those gorgeous beaches! On our way from Santiago de Compostela to Oveido to drop off our rental car, we stopped by some of the most beautiful, remote beaches in the country. They were simply gorgeous. See for yourself -


Can you imagine living in that house at the bottom right?

Beautiful beach two -

Isn't it stunning?

You can tell how off the beaten path this is just by looking at the "Vehicle Exit" sign.




Looking at pictures from this beach always makes me think of Maxfield Parrish's "Ecstasy"
via Print Mag

Thanks to my sweetums for taking all these gorgeous pictures

More Pictures from my summer in Europe!

To help you over hump day, I thought I'd share some images from my very awesome summer backpacking around Europe for 9 weeks. These are all from the first week of our trip, where we rented a car and drove around the northwest region of Spain, Galicia.



We drove around Galicia on this day stopping at little coastal towns that were recommended to us.




The four images above are from a beautiful estuary called, Ría de Arousa.

The five images below are just one reason it's a good idea to rent a car and drive around the countryside if you're able to. We ended up driving past a couple of little vineyards and drove down side streets to get a better look. It was so pretty- images don't do it justice.








Finally we made it to our destination city of the day, Pontevedra. Unfortunately we got there in the evening, and that meant not a whole lot of time to take photos. This also ended up being one of our favorite medieval towns in all of Europe, so hopefully one day we'll make it back so we can explore more. Sidenote: A cafe in Pontevedra served the best tortilla in Spain the Chris and I have ever tasted!






all images property of my boyfriend, Chris :)

Since we didn't have much daylight to snap photos, I was naughty and grabbed some photos from another site so you can get a better sense of how amazing this town is.



images property of Jorge Tutor

Pictures from Europe - Baiona and Isle de Cies in Spain

Here are pictures from the first two days of our trip. We were in the coastal region of Galicia, in Spain. Galicia was beyond beautiful and we were lucky enough to get 5 days without any rain, which is almost unheard of in that region. We rented a car and used the city of Vigo as our home base for two nights. I really liked Vigo.


Map of Galicia - in the North West corner of Spain. GORGEOUS GORGEOUS.
map via Manchester 2002

Baiona is a small coastal town with a nice little port, gorgeous rocky coast, and wooded hills.






Here is a passage from my journal entry from Baiona:

"We started out in Vigo after driving 5hrs from Valladolid. Vigo is a cool city with a San Francisco feel. We went on a day trip to Baiona, which was so pretty. The Garmin really came in handy because it managed to get us to an island with a temple on top (temple in photo above). It took us through a tiny neighborhood with the narrowest streets - though the houses were nice. It was a fun adventure. - June 17th"


The images below are from one of my "must-sees". The Cíes Islands, a short ferry boat ride from Vigo.

About the Islands:
"They were declared a Nature Reserve in 1980 and are included in the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park (Parque Nacional Marítimo-Terrestre das Illas Atlánticas de Galicia) created in 2002. In the year 2007, the British newspaper The Guardian chose the beach of Rodas, in the island of Monteagudo, as the "most beautiful beach of the world". via Wikipedia

Approaching the islands

From the ferry boat dock




Some people go just to lie on the beautiful beaches, but we did a hike up to the various view points.

One side of this island was rocky cliffs, the other white sand beaches.




The other island from the top of the one where we were hiking.

up to the lighthouse



There were a handful of gorgeous beaches on this island

Well I hope you enjoyed these! There will be tons more in the following months!

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