Via Lemovicensis: Denouement

Adam and I spent the first full day in Santiago on the 22nd mostly meeting up with other pilgrims who came in throughout the day. Most of the folks I walked with came in that day.

There was some necessary shopping and laundry, and I also got the tattoo.

Francine had a tattoo on the inside of her right forearm based on the early medieval pilgrim song recorded in the Codex Calixtinus. 

She got the word “ultreia” and a small flower done after our 2022 Camino Primitivo. After her service as an hospitalera and her Camino Portuguese, she added the words “et suseia”. The plan had been to add the last line “Deus adjuva nos” when we finished our Via Lemovicensis.

I got the entire tattoo that day. 

That evening, we had a massive dinner with more than 20 pilgrim friends at – of all places – the only Indian restaurant in Santiago.

Yesterday, Saint John’s Eve, my friend Herve arrived in Santiago at about 8 AM, and Adam and I were there to greet him. There were tears all around. 

Later that afternoon, Yves arrived. We have not seen him since May 14 in Mont-de-Marsan, a distance of more than a thousand kilometers. He had veered off the route in France, and had taken an entirely different Camino route in Spain, the Camino del Norte.

And yet, somehow, he and Herve entered Santiago on the same day.

We all shared a beer at a café in sight of the Cathedral, along with a young woman from Macau that had been part of Yves’ Camino del Norte family.

During the middle part of the day, Adam and I took a tour of the Cathedral museums and roof. 

Despite the Baroque veneer, the main structure of Santiago Cathedral is Romanesque. During the last forty years of its construction, it was supervised by a man known as Maestro Mateo (c. 1150 – c. 1217). 

Many of his works were stripped from the cathedral during the Baroque renovations and dumped as fill for foundations. Some of them, though, have now been archaeologically excavated and can be found now in the museum. 

The major exception to this is sculptural tableau surrounding the cathedral’s main entrance, now used only on Saint James’s day by the King of Spain or his representative. 

This entrance is known as the Portico of Glory, and we got the chance to visit it as part of the tour. No photos of this, sadly, since the rights to the images are held for the next few years by the foundation that furnished the money for its recent restoration.

The tour just skimmed through the museum, but our tickets are good for the next few days, so I will definitely go back and look at everything else we skipped over.

Last night was, of course, Saint John’s Eve. Santiago knows how to put on a party. Leaving aside people jumping over bonfires, the city partied from sometime mid afternoon until 6 o’clock the next morning. The streets were jammed with people.

Today, after a leisurely sightseeing morning, Adam, Herve, and I went to the noon Mass at the cathedral. The Botafumeiro swung after. 

We also saw Yves and Mattie there (remember Mattie? I haven’t seen her since Castrojeriz, some three weeks back). She arrived earlier this morning with Thomas from Switzerland/New York. 

I continued to meet pilgrim friends throughout the day. This culminated at dinner, when I got a chance to meet up with Anita from Norway.

Francine and I met Anita in 2016 – a decade ago – on our second Camino. She had since moved from Norway to Spain. It was really neat to rekindle our friendship in person together.

Date: 24 June 2026

Place: Santiago de Compostela 

Photos from Santiago