Camino Santiago de Compostela was something I heard about years ago — I was wondering who would want to do that — apparently Sharon. Very proud of Sharon for taking on this challenge — people are encouraged to come up with two words to describe the effort — my words for Sharon were “tough” and “inspiring.”
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Santiago is a decent-sized city, I had done little investigation and had assumed it was a village with a big church — it was much bigger city which delayed my arrival a bit. After meeting up with Sharon and she got her Compostela, we watched the other Pilgrims coming into town towards the end of the day…about 3,000 people from all directions finish each day.
Surprisingly, she was up for a late dinner – 9 to 11pm – we met up with a friend Sharon had walked with for a couple of days. It was hot in Santiago too, but not as hot as Bilbao or Madrid so that helps rationalize the late dinners in the summer – it is also light until almost 11pm as well. The hot weather also made Sangria the drink of choice for this trip.
The next day we did a proper tour of the Cathedral, it is the second biggest Catholic Cathedral after the Vatican and St. James is buried there – hence the Pilgrimages. We learned on our tour there that one of the original reasons for the Pilgrimage was to raise money from tourists to fund the construction of the church. The primary artistic feature of the church is Pórtico of the Glory which didn’t allow pictures
There are two distant areas in the center of Santiago – the Old Town near the church and a newer (like 1950-1970s) larger commercial district where I was driving around and we had our hotel. The walk for Sharon (Camino Portuguese from the south) went right through the Old Town, while walks for other direction (like Camino Frances from the east) came through a different set of alleys – all having gold shell markers. The old town is a combination of tourist places and restaurants.
Travel note – I had to return the rental car to the airport – it was the first day open in 25 days. Google took me to an abandoned parking lot – to be fair the agency had just relocated as part of the airport closure and was now onsite and eventually I found it (no signs posted yet either) and I was probably the first “return” they had – and I had a damage issue in the rim – but hey insurance. Very modern and nice airport and only 3 planes were there so far. But initially no Ubers or taxis available for the return and then another plane landed and taxis arrived.
We took the high speed train out because we thought it easier and less damaging to my recently repaired shoulder – but it was completely full and we had to hoist our full size luggage into the overhead bins. But no re-injury.
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