After Frodo’s scary adventure working his way through impossible cobbled streets in Mondoñedo, we eventually arrived at our campsite at Santiago de Compostela. This was a terraced campsite with each avenue of pitches being terraced above those below. The pitches were short – 9m max. – and very tight with little room between units. This is somewhere you come to sleep as a tourist, not somewhere you came for the joy of camping.
The following morning we all set off into Santiago de Compostela itself. We walked down our relative mountainside, passed my bit of sanity that was a Carrefour supermarket, and joined a footpath marked with brass scallop shells, one of the pilgrim caminos heading towards revered the cathedral of Santiago. Marked, that is, except for the various gaps in the paving slabs where various miscreant pilgrims had nicked the brass scallop shells. The scallop shell motive apparently stems from the early days predating a certificate when pilgrims went to Cape Finisterre to collect a scallop shell showing that they had completed the pilgrimage.
Today the pathway was filled with many pilgrims on their last leg, standing out from regular tourists because of their twin trekking poles. A local jogged past us bitching about the amount of the path we were taking up. On the paths in Santiago, the shells point towards the Santiago cathedral.
Leader Andy had organized a 2-hour guided walk around the sights of Santiago. We were wired for sound with earplugs, the better to hear our guide. We met her in the cathedral square. She was very good. Having talked us through a lot of the architecture of various faces of the cathedral, we headed off to see more of the town. To be frank, I found the architecture austere and dull but you know me with piles of old stones. OK, it isn’t my natural habitat but it was a couple of hours of entertainment.
The city tour following the cathedral led us down the Rua do Franco and Travesa do Franco, with which I had a natural affinity, especially as the rua was one of the main restaurant streets. Having nothing to do with me, the franco reference is to do with being the route to the cathedral from France. There are very many caminos to Santiago but these are the main ones. Once cut loose from our tour, we returned to Rua do Franco for some lunch concentrating on seafood.
Francine and a couple of travelling companions wanted to go into the cathedral. While they did, I happily remained outside guarding the small collection of rucksacks. Upon exit, Francine said that most of the cathedral interior was relatively plain but that the altar did possess lots of “bling”. This image shows the enormous incense burner to counteract unpleasant smells of the great unwashed, which weighs in, allegedly, at 100kgs. Don’t get hit on the head.
We walked back uphill via a handy-dandy bar for some refreshment. We managed to clock up 19000 steps today, a mere spit compared to the steps required to follow one of the many pilgrim trails.
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