Walking the Camino de Santiago
Every day at noon, Mass is celebrated in the Cathedral for the arriving pilgrims. Most usually, you will attend the day after you arrive due to simple logistics. Here you see the gathered pilgrims awaiting the start of the Mass in about ten minutes. On either side of the nave, you can see the the enormous pipes of the organ, […]
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Continuing down yesterday’s street into the Praza da Quintana, we find the monastery of San Paio de Antealtares on our right. Originally built in the 9th Century, it was subsequently restored and expanded every century or two, culminating in the Baroque structure we see today. It still houses a cloistered monastery (the monks left in 1499, and it’s been nuns […]
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The narrow medieval streets in the old town of Santiago twist and wind like a maze around the Cathedral. It’s easy to get lost, and I frequently have. City workers wash the streets in the pre-dawn hours, which is why this one appears wet, even though we can see the brilliant morning sunshine in the plaza beyond. The streets are […]
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Both of my breakfast companions on that first full day in Santiago de Compostela were charming. Exhausted from six weeks of walking, but charming. It is a long, long time indeed since that first meal that Francine and I shared on this Camino, back in Saint Jean Pied-de-Port, France. Date: 03 May 2016 Place: Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain)
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After visiting and praying some time at the tomb of the saint, we spent a short time touring about the cathedral. I’ll have more photos in coming days, but this is enough to give you a taste. It’s not a building so much as a complex of buildings all mashed together in a glorious cacophony of architectural and artistic styles. […]
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Here, at last, we come to the object of our pilgrimage. In the crypt under the high altar of the Cathedral, we come face to face with the casket containing the remains of the Apostle Saint James – Santiago. “And going on a little farther, [Jesus] saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their […]
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Just opposite the Holy Door we come at last to the steps leading down into the crypt where Saint James the Apostle – Santiago – is entombed. The stone steps are worn smooth and concave from the footsteps of generations of pilgrims. Day and night they file down in a seemingly unending line. The crypt itself lies under the high […]
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Compostela in hand, we head at last to the Cathedral. Here, we enter through the Holy Door. This particular door is open only in Jacobean Holy Years – those years where the Feast of Santiago falls on a Sunday. In 2016, however, Pope Francis had declared a special Jubilee Holy Year of Mercy. Holy Doors were opened in Cathedrals and […]
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And here it is, the Compostela, the proof of my pilgrimage. But it’s not over yet! We have yet to actually complete the last few steps into the Cathedral itself and down into the crypt where the Apostle’s bones reside. That’s next on the agenda! Date: 02 May 2016 Place: Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain)
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And then it’s off to the Pilgrim Office. In centuries past, you would receive your Compostela – the paper that proves you’ve walked the pilgrimage – at the sacristy of the Cathedral itself. Nowadays, there’s a whole building for this. You wait in line with the other pilgrims who have walked at least the final 100km. Of course, our distance […]
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