Day 43: Santiago de Compostela

Time to get out and explore the area. The old town here is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the cathedral is both famous and important - it's traditionally believed to house the tomb of St James, one of the 12 apostles. It's also the endpoint for the Camino del Santiago (the Way of St James), a Christian pilgrimage that follows the entire coastline of northern Spain, all the way from the French border to Santiago. I'm not exactly sure why people do the pilgrimage (other than it being a nice long hike); it's a world heritage site as well but since we weren't doing the hike I didn't read up much on it.

We walked the 20 minutes from our apartment into the main old town and had a look around. First impressions of the cathedral were disappointing, as the entire facade was covered with scaffolding for restoration work and you hardly see anything. The square is nice though, with some other impressive buildings fronting it, and slow trickle of pilgrims constantly arriving.

Got some footage and then ventured inside the cathedral for a look. A bit of scaffolding in here too, but not too bad. Again though, we weren't super taken with it. We've been in larger cathedrals, and we've been in more ornate and impressively decorated ones too. St James's bones are kept in the crypt under the altar, so we shuffled past with everyone else (thankfully not too crowded though). Not much to see though, just a large silver box about 10 metres away down a barred tunnel.

And I hate to be a cynic, but I'm a little sceptical about the whole thing. His relics and remains were "discovered" in the 8th century, so around 750 years after he actually lived. And with a little reading, there's not a lot of evidence to suggest he had been to or was taken to Spain, particularly since he was martyred in Jerusalem. It's also interesting that the discovery was made while the Iberian peninsula was under heavy attack from the Moors (ie Muslims from north Africa). Defending a saint's remains might get people interested in fighting who wouldn't otherwise?

Anyway. We paid our respects, hugged the large statue as you're supposed to do (though I passed on kissing his brooch like pilgrims are meant to!) and moved on. Explored some more of the old town and it was nice, but again we've seen nicer old towns. Maybe I was in a bad mood or something, but I really just wasn't feeling it. Had a nice lunch of a local delicacy - barbecued octopus tentacles with boiled potatoes and paprika.

By mid-afternoon we'd gotten enough footage and felt like we'd seen enough of the town, so headed back to the apartment where we discovered Schnitzel had peed on a rug. Thankfully it was washable so we washed it and hung it out - not a lot of sun today but it stays up until 9pm so it managed to dry OK. He hasn't seemed very settled in this apartment, maybe there are other dog scents in here from previous guests.

Still with no internet, we ventured to a cafe up the street in a heavy rainstorm to use their free wifi over a couple of hot drinks. I managed to get a video uploaded for tomorrow morning's scheduled post, so that was a weight off my mind. Connection was very slow so it took a while, but alas.

Back to the apartment where we finished off our spaghetti and pesto and headed for bed. Long day tomorrow - a World Heritage double feature! A shame neither of us felt that taken with Santiago, as it's a fairly well-known tourist town. It's definitely in the top 10 Spanish destinations. Maybe if we'd come here earlier in the trip we would've felt differently? The weather makes a big difference too I guess.Read more