Santiago de Compostela

My flight to Gatwick is later this evening so I had a whole day to explore Santiago. The Natural History Museum was fun and full of small children on school trips. I was disappointed that out of hundreds of birds displayed there was not one stork. I also decided that the animal which dashed in front of me somewhere near Palas de Rei had indeed been a beech marten.
I spent the afternoon in the Museum of the Camino, highly informative and provoking in the sense that one reason for its success in relatively recent times is the status it was afforded by Franco by restoring the association between St James and the State, Franco was the catalyst for the transformation  of the Camino into an international attraction. 
In another series of coincidences I met several of the folk I had walked with over the last 33 days or so including the mother and daughter from Florida with whom I had walked into Zubiri on day 2.
I am now at the airport where I scooted through check in and security in about 10 minutes. The flight, needless to say, is delayed by an hour or so. As airports go it’s up there with Reykjavik and Schiphol, airy, comfortable, and almost empty. 
I should add that the skyline blip was taken from one of the delightful green parks that scatter the city, and where I also located the abandoned Ferris wheel that I could see from Cathedral square.