Today was the end of our eclipse adventure in Spain and the beginning of our Bowery Boys adventure in the Netherlands.
We started the day saying goodbye to our new MIT Travel friends at breakfast (those who hadn’t already had to leave for the airport, anyway). We hope to see some of them on future eclipse tours (Australia in 2028!) if not before.
We didn’t have to leave for the airport until 1:15pm, so we spent a couple of hours wandering around Santiago de Compostela; this time, we explored Rúa do Franco. We discovered that USC (that’s Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) has an exhibit space and garden there, where we met yet another Alonso ruling over a Spanish kingdom.
We also found a post office, but they had just run out of eclipse stamps; if I’d known that Spanish post offices are open 7 days a week, I would have stopped by yesterday in our free time. Maybe next eclipse….
We did a little more exploring along the Rua de San Francisco before returning to the hotel to check out.
Our airport transfer ran 30 minutes late, but it didn’t matter; we got to the airport about 2pm, only to find the check-in gate closed. It finally opened about 2:30pm for our 4:30pm flight, which got us to Amsterdam Schiphol airport just before 7.
We’re staying at the airport Sheraton for a few days to take advantage of a bargain fare back to SFO; we were inspired by the Bowery Boys to spend that time visiting Haarlem and Utrecht.
The Bowery Boys also inspired us to try bitterballen for dinner — they were pretty good!