Tuesday 29th May 2018
Today we headed east to visit the Cathedral at Santiago de Compestela. We were aware that many thousands of pilgrims and hikers make the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago, along various routes to visit the remains of St. James believed to be buried here. The BBC recently highlighted the Camino in the series Pilgrimage: The Road To Santiago.
Although only about 50km, as the crow flies, from the campsite the journey was nearer 70km around the winding coastline and then a fine modern motorway. Having found free street parking less than a kilometre away we made our way up to the cathedral. Our first view was of the western façade, unfortunately partially clothed in scaffolding and netting.
Opposite the west façade sits the Pazo de Raxoi, a former archbishops’ palace dating from 1766. It is used today as Santiago’s town hall.
The pilgrims/hikers/bikers seem to sit in their groups outside the palace to recover from their efforts.
The main entrance was closed for repairs at the time of our visit so we made our way around to the Praza das Praterías and entered from there.
On entering it was clear that an awful lot of work was being done to renovate the cathedral.
The Communion Chapel, however, is immaculate.
We decided not to join the long queue of pilgrims patiently waiting to visit the remains of St. James and made our way out into the narrow, busy, streets of Santiago.
Unfortunately we passed up the opportunity to partake of lunch in this excellent looking tapas bar choosing instead to attend what we thought must be the establishment with the worst service in town. Further research on Trip Advisor suggested we were right 🙂
