Santiago de Compostela

We arrived in Santiago on October 6, 102.4 kilometers from Lugo ( three 20 K days, three 12 to 15 K days.). Things continued to be somewhat crowded on the trail but never problematically so. You get to a big park overlooking the city and can see the spires of the cathedral, but then you have a rather slogging 5 km more until you actually reach the Cathedral. And unfortunately the cathedral is under construction so it is covered with scaffolding, which makes the pictures somewhat less beautiful. However, we were very glad to be there and to have arrived. We enjoyed looking around Santiago, although it's very touristy and very focused on pilgrims, with more Camino souvenirs than you can shake a walking stick at. We stayed at a very nice place just outside the walls. The following day we went to get our Compostela, which is the official certificate of completion . The line was about an hour long, which is relatively short. They look at your pilgrim credential and make sure that you have stamps along the last hundred kilometers, then they write out your certificate with your name in Latin (in my Saram Patriaam Roberts. (They just left Seikah's name alone :)). About 1000 pilgrims a day complete the Camino, but the office is open from 8 AM to 9 PM so the crowd is spread out to some extent. We are going to enjoy Santiago for a few days, then head to Finisterre, the end of the world.Read more