Betanzos and its Old Town

As my friend Maria rightly says, this could easily compete with any of the churches that are shown in The Da Vinci Code. I am now back in Europe.

As I landed all Europe has been hit by cold weather, my intention initially was to declare myself as an illegal inmigrant, hoping I would get a free flight back to Colombia...but I decided that all good things must come to an end. Also, I really could not find any excuses to give my parents not to spend Xmas with them.

So now I am back in Galicia and have gone to a town called Betanzos to see close friends that live there.

One of my favourite churches on the whole trip, at night or during the day, has been there for hundreds of year, and still stunning

I am not really sure why do they have Diana, the Greek God, in the middle of Betanzos, but hey ho, who am I to comment on that

Sometimes during this year I have realized that we go very long distances, we travel the world to vist new places, and sometimes we forget the beautiful places that we have near by. I have trekked in the Himalayas, but have never gone to the Pyrenees. I may have visited lots of colonial towns in Central and South America, such as Antigua, but I have never been to some of the most beautiful old towns in Spain, such as Burgos.

Little cobbled street, just beautiful

Betanzos has a Roman bridge, Romanesce churches that can easily match the French ones, and a beautiful old town to visit, yet I had never appreciated how beautiful this town is.

The perfect place to have a wee coffee

It is funny that this trip has made me see this, I lived 10 km away from it for 16 year, and only now I have come to realized.

I guess it is also the fact that I now love taking pictures, and I seem to be looking at things differently.

My friend Pablo has lent me his camera, after mine was stolen, so I have been walking around and looking for those pics. Sadly, and Pablo does agree with me on this, Betanzos is beautiful, but a complete bi*ch to photograph. He has explained something about light, narrow streets, etc...

It also shows some of what in Galicia is called Feismo, Uglysm...a complete disrespect for town planning...and there are plenty of buildings that are just falling apart...