Santiago de Compostela by moonlight

It's fiesta day, the Virgin Mary's ascension to heaven. That means the only bus to Santiago goes at 18:30. And we're on it. Up and down hillsides, past rolling fields of corn, rows of windmills on hilltops, villages with a variety of "pillboxes-on-stilts", some topped with crosses. They're for storing corn. After one and a half hour and one bus-change we're at a big city bus-terminal.

Santiago has 90,000 inhabitants, and a huge summer invasion of tourists and pilgrims. We grab a cab. Luckily, he drives us right into the heart of the pedestrian-only Old City and right to the perfect place to stay, Doña Ester’s five room Pension con Encanto. Truly enchanting, especially our lively and always smiling hostess. (Address: Rua de Abril Ares 1, near Praza de S. Miguel dos Agros.) This is our first miracle, finding a bed, without a reservation, cheap, right in the middle of the old city, behind the Cathedral, during these busy Fiesta days. The Pencion is in a little square, off one of the many winding, sidewalk-cafe lined lanes.

Santiago de Compostela by night is overwhelming. Moonlit stone towers, narrow paths, steep steps, vaulted passageways echoing with Gaelic bagpipes played in the shadows. Then we go out onto the huge Stonemasons square. There, a Renaissance troupe in costume is playing lutes and tambourines behind a colonnade. Pilgrims rest, their packs and walking sticks stacked in piles around the columns.

Under a full moon, the grey stone on the enormous gargoyled towers turns spooky. The ancient bells sound, deep and hoarse; it's midnight. Time to return to the clean ironed sheets at Doña Ester’s "Pension con Encanto".