Day 8-10 May 22-25 Santiago de Compostela Discovery & Farewell

Following a good night’s sleep at the luxurious San Francisco Monumento Hotel we had a leisurely & sumptuous full-service breakfast downstairs in the cafeteria and decided what to do with our time in this fabled and historic city. We had three days in which to explore Santiago and luckily, Elaine Hopkins was there with us to share her tips & knowledge, gained from five previous trips there.

Joan's Credential

But first on the docket was to get our Compostela from the Pilgrim Office, attesting to our completion of the required minimum 100 km walk – that distance in our case from Ourense on the Camino Sanabres, but equally to pilgrimages starting in Ferrol (English Way), Sarria (French Way) and several other routes. The Office was a short walk from our hotel and even though we got there around 10 AM, the line of pilgrims ran out the door and doubled back into a hallway. Many had just arrived and were carrying full backpacks, most to be left outside in the courtyard and picked up after completion of the process, which involved presentation of our credential (with requisite stamps by albergues, bars, churches and hostels) and attachment of the distance walked. We were not asked as to the purpose of our pilgrimage, but were prepared to answer “spiritual”, as I suspect would be the case for most of those who had completed the journey. Joan received her Compostela (in Latin!) and we also got our distance- walked certification; I only asked for the Compostela. 

Our Compostella's - at last!

Once finished, we met in the courtyard and sitting on the round fountain in the center, had the traditional photograph taken by a fellow perigrino. I also took advantage of the Renfe railway office in the buildin4g and purchased our train tickets for the trip back to Madrid on the 25^th, where we would spend the night at an airport hotel prior to our Iberia flight back to Boston on the 26^th.

Now it also felt right to further memorialize our completion by getting a tattoo. Neither Joan nor I had ever gotten a tattoo, but Elaine had a stylized concha symbol on her hip on a previous visit to Santiago and said she knew the best artist in town, so off we went to find Daniel. Unfortunately, the shop she remembered seemed to have vanished so we gave up for the day and found an outdoor bar for tapas and cool drinks for lunch. 

4 Horses Fountain

Over the next two days, we wandered around and found much to enjoy in the city. We spent an afternoon in the Museum of Pilgrimage, situated right next to the Fountain of the Four Horses, just below the main cathedral’s southern entrance, The five floors in the newly completed museum contain a marvelous collection of art, artifacts and historical documentation of the growth and meaning of the area that became known as “compostela” (“Field of Stars”), growing over time apace with, and inter-twined in the legend of St. James, the Apostle.  We highly recommend the Museum to any perigrino who wants to understand more about what the Pilgrimage has meant in culture, literature, Christian religion and medieval (and modern) life during the past 1,300 years.

Santiago

A high point for us was attending a Mass at the Cathedral, where the remains of St. James (“Santiago” in Spanish) are interred. We got there early for the noon Mass and were able to get three seats about 10 rows back in the transept area, close to the nave and the altar itself. The huge church became filled with pilgrims, local people, tour groups and just curious folks and as the hour approached, the standing room in back became filled as well. The ceremony was delivered in Spanish and while Joan & I couldn’t understand it, the intensity and power of the oration by the priest was unmistakable. Joan is convinced I must have been a Catholic in a previous incarnation, since I really like the mystery, majesty and fervent belief expressed in the service, particularly if delivered in Latin (pre-Vatican II style) or as in this case, Spanish. We were hoping to see the famous botafemeiro being swung during the service but since Elaine had attended several other services in the past and never seen the event, we were not hopeful.

Botafemeiro

As the service was drawing to a close, a group about eight young men, clad in scarlet robes, approached the nave and seizing a thick rope holding the massive incense burner (known generically as a thirible or here as a botafemeiro) that was moored off to the side, slowly let sway the shiny burner into the central area, where it was filled with incense which was then set a-smoldering. As the sweet smelling smoke wafted over the nave (a necessity in medieval days since most pilgrims then never bathed and after several months on the road, were odoriferous) the rope pullers set the botafemeiro in motion swinging down the transept, in ever increasing arcs and pulling it skyward towards the ceiling at the end of each swing. We were sitting right under the high point of each arc on one side and had a thrilling viewpoint of the ceremony, which lasted about 5 minutes.  It really was an emotional moment for both of us! We subsequently learned that a Japanese tour group had paid for the ceremony to be performed. For that we say: “Domo arrigato”!

Welcoming new arrivals

After the service we wandered up to the Plaza de las Cervantes and found a table outside a bar where we could nurse a cafe con leche and cheer perigrinos on the French Way just arriving at the finish of their long pilgrimage. Tired, probably hungry and longing to realize their long sought goal of finishing their pilgrimage and standing in the Plaza de Obradoira facing the cathedral front entrance, it was gratifying to see most walkers (and a few bikers) smile, grin or even sometimes break into a little dance step or two as our claps and shouts of “Congratulations!” or “You did it!” brightened their last few steps. 

Ask for Daniel!

We also found that tattoo shop that Elaine remembered; it was called the Sagrado Corazon and had simply moved last year to a new location on a busier street. We three walked inside and were suddenly into a strange new world of young people, most wearing lots of elaborate and colorful body art. We told Daniel what we wanted – a commemoration of our successful pilgrimage - and he handed us a book of samples. Joan selected a plain black-line concha shell pattern about an inch and a quarter long while I picked out a slightly more elaborate pattern in which the concha is overlain with a red cross of St. James. This seemed appropriate, since the scallop shell symbol and its more popular partner, the yellow arrow, had been our sought-after companion as we walked across the unfamiliar landscape, sometimes appearing painted on buildings or walls, other times on utility poles or the road surface itself. We also later bought a couple of tiles – one the Galician concha, the other the yellow arrow - and have them now hanging in our breezeway entrance.

It was fun to wander around town, just exploring odd shops and little alleys. Next time we come back (probably in October), we’ll be staying somewhere else than the four star Monumento Hotel and we checked out a few bars, small hotels and private albergues, such as the Real Hotel on Rua de Caldereria or the O Bodegon bar on Rua de Franco. The town can get crowded and feel pretty touristy as the big buses keep rolling into the square to drop off masses of tourists, usually then led around by the leader waving a brightly colored pennant on a high pole. 

But Santiago has a tremendous powerful & authentic element too, on a deeper level; for most of the growing number of “perigrinos”, being there has an emotional significance that’s hard to express. Many books have been written about how the experience of being “on pilgrimage” offers the potential to change oneself and we don’t intend to add to that body of work. But it has changed us. We’ve been talking, Joan & I, since we got home to Maine, about exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing, walking long distances in Spain and England.  My silent prayer, whispered in the quiet of the cathedral as I performed the perigrino's ritual of climbing up the narrow stairs behind the statue of St. James, was for us to be able to continue walking long distances with vitality and energy for five more years;  doing so gives us so much meaning and satisfaction in our lives. Since I will be celebrating my 83rd birthday this September (while on hospitalero service in Astorga), for me this is no idle wish!

We leave for England on June 17th, for Yorkshire and the Dales Way walk of 81 miles from Ikley to Bowness on Windemere.  We will be blogging that too, so log in and follow us as we walk for miles through small English villages, for miles along the Wharfe River, then cross the Pennine range and end up in the beautiful Lakes Region!