Did you lose weight on the Camino??

We aren't anticipating that.  We'll be lucky if we maintain our current over-weights since we chose the "easy walking" option of 9-16 kilometers a day (OK so the last day is 19) which will leave us plenty of time to ferret out sustenance on the road.  Let's just hope that the village bars on the Camino don't have too many delicious tapas.

Mercado de Abastos

Starting at our destination, here are some mentions of food and restaurants in Santiago.  First on the list is the Mercado de Abastos - that's according to CaminoWays, which says it is "the city’s second most visited attraction after the cathedral and a must-see for food lovers" and where we can find "all quintessential Galician products such as Padrón peppers, octopus, salted cod, goose neck barnacles, savoury pies (empanada) and more."  Unfortunately we are staying in a simple pension and not an apartment where we could cook those barnacles, although maybe it would be better to let someone who knows how to cook them.  Hopefully they will have food stands selling prepared dishes, like Cociña María.  There's a trendy place there: Abastos 2.0 with a fixed price lunch menu but I don't know if we'll have time for lunch. The mercado is open Monday to Saturday, from 7am until 3pm.

Rua do Franco

Rúa do Franco, south of the Cathedral, is called the "wine trail" and is knows for its bars and tapas.  One of its restaurants, El Pasaje, has a website where you can peruse their menu (with prices) for all the typical dishes.  And here's A Taberna do Bispo which looks like it has tapas as good as those in Pamplona, along with the tourists.  An article in the Irish Independent mentions a cafeteria called Café Casino for a bowl of Galician soup and they have other typical soups and tapas under their "entrantes and raciones".  And there's A Curtidoria with a Menu del Dia for 12 euros.  All these are from the Google map of Santiago so who knows how they will be but at least they will give us an idea of what is "on offer".

There's an older couple, Pam and Jeff, who took two months to do the Camino Aragones from Jaca near Barcelona to Santiago.  Naturally they walked longer days than we will (we're wimps) and ate a lot and have a page on Camino por Comida where we can check out all the specialties of each region.

Pam and Jeff having a bocadillo en el campo.