Day 40 - Santiago de Composela

 

The old monk's refectory with reading pulpit

It seems like I have adapted to a new routine now. Get up, shower, breakfast in the monk’s old refectory and then go sightseeing. Today, after breakfast, I decided to have a better look around the old town and then try again, to get into the pilgrim mass, at the cathedral.

The old town of Santiago is not very big, but because the streets twist and turn, it’s easy to miss parts or get confused about which bits you have already seen. At one point his morning, I totally lost me sense of direction and started waking back the way I had already come.

But, the narrow little streets are what makes Santiago a lovely place to visit. There are no high street chains here. I might have missed it, but I didn’t see a Costa or McDonalds. They are all independent shops. One shop I saw, was a millinery shop and just sold men’s hats.

If you are interested, here is a QR link to the Santiago tourist office where there are a number of videos of interesting sites in the city. Video 7 covers the monastery of San Martino Pinario, where my hostel is located

The pilgrim mass at the cathedral is at 12pm every day. After missing out yesterday, I made sure I was in there by 11am and I got a seat along with a lot of other tourists, who were already seated. The one thing everyone wanted to see was the swinging of the giant incense burner, the Botafumeiro. They only schedule the Botafumeiro on about 10 days a year, unless a group specifically wants to see it and pay for the monks to come and pull on the ropes. My hopes were raised when I saw a large group of tourists sat in the reserved seats, and I though I might be lucky today.

The service was all in Spanish so it was difficult to feel involved and as time went on, I assumed that nothing was going to happen. Then, near to the end of the service, the monks came in and started to get the incense into the burner and ready to swing it through the church. I have uploaded my video to YouTube for you to see. https://youtu.be/jJcWfAaIACg

I had been looking forward to seeing this since I had originally planned my Camino, 2 years ago. I was so pleased that I had seen it today.

In the afternoon, I had been invited to dinner by Nestor, who lives just outside the city. Nestor has two teenage children (who were very polite and friendly) and as he was coming into the city to pick them up from school, we arranged for me to be picked up too. I had been introduced to Nestor by my friend and ex-colleague Susan, who now lives in the south of Spain. Nestor suggested I should come and experience to real Galician hospitality! I was treated to octopus and potatoes and then for a second course, Galician cabbage and Chorizo, all flavoured with salt, paprika and olive oil. It was a lovely treat to be eating in Nestor’s home.

Only one more full day in Santiago and then I fly home!

Comments

  1. Barbara20 October 2021 at 23:08

    What an amazing censer! A bit bigger than the ones the altar servers swung at St Joseph’s when we were kids!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MartinV21 October 2021 at 08:25

    Haha, yes it was huge but not the strong sense of incense that I remember as a child.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction and Route Details

Image
  Alto del Perdón  Introduction. I was inspired to do this walk whilst on a flight to Toulouse in September 2019, with my son Tom. We were travelling to the Spanish Pyrenees for a short walking holiday. On the plane, I sat next to a retired teacher, Maeve from Glastonbury, who told me that she was travelling to France to start her walk on the Camino de Santiago. This was to be her seventh time!  Chatting with her, for about an hour on the flight, started something in me that I couldn't forget, and for weeks after I kept thinking about the possibility that I could do it too; to walk around 800km (500 miles) from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the foot of the Pyrenees in France (literally "Saint John at the Foot of the Pass"), to Santiago de Compostela in the far north-west of Spain. I had heard the popularity of people walking the Camino many times, seen it on celeb TV and the film, The Way etc, but I had dismissed it as something I didn't want ...
Read more

Day 19 – Calzadilla De Los Hermanillos to Puente Villarente

Image
I think it may have just been me and a German lady staying in the albergue. It seems like everyone else went on the normal route. We both went into dinner and sat at separate tables (as you do) but I started speaking to her and then she came over and joined me for dinner. The meals in albergues seem to be the same where ever I stay. Occasionally there is some Spanish dish, but normally it is some meat and chips or salad and meat, not what I expected. Her English was quite good and so we were able to have a enjoyable conversation. She started her Camino in Vezelay in France, a 1000km before St Jean, where I started! She started on the 18 June, but somewhere along the route, she developed tendonitis in her feet. She couldn’t move. She was staying in a convent at the time and the nuns said she could stay until she got better. It was only after 3 weeks that she was well enough to carry on. She promised to return to the convent (not walking!) once she has reached Santiago. I...
Read more

Day 39 - Santiago de Compostela

Image
If you haven’t read my recent blog posts, you might not be aware that I have completed my Caminos and I am now in Santiago. I’m enjoying a bit of a rest before I fly back to the UK on Friday. If you know me well, you will know that I find it hard to be a tourist, I would prefer to be out walking on the hills. But today, I have been determined to have a good look at the Cathedral and Santiago. I first went to the museum and bought an inclusive ticket to the museum and guided tour of the Cathedral (in Spanish). Despite my lack of understanding  of the language I enjoyed looking around the museum.  There was very little English translation so I just looked and appreciated the craftsmanship of the stone masons as there were lots of examples of very old carved stone. The paintings were interesting but quite a few depicting the Spanish soldiers attacking the invading Moors. The library didn’t do much for me for obvious reasons....
Read more