Santiago de Compostela

I took the bus from Porto, Portugal, to Santiago to Compostela, the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwest Spain (directly above Portugal).

The landscape of Galicia is nothing like the rest of Spain. It rains a lot, and it's very green with rolling hills and beautiful coastlines.

Galicia is almost a mix between Portugal and Spain. The landscape is more similar to northern Portugal and the people are similar also. Spanish people in this region speak both Spanish and another language called 'Gallego', or Galician. Gallego is like a mix between Portuguese and Spanish. It's very similar to Spanish and even shares a great deal of vocabulary, but it sounds more like Portuguese.
To go to Santiago I had to go through the largest city in Galicia, which is Vigo. Vigo is a large port city with a large river entering the ocean.


Here I am in Santiago de Compostela. This is the famous Cathedral of Santiago (remember that in Spanish Santiago is St. James the Apostle) where it's said that Santiago is buried. This shrine to St. James the Great has been luring millions of tourists a year for centuries (since medieval times, in fact). It is the final destination of the prestigious Christian pilgrimmage 'Way of St. James', or Camino de Santiago. People from all over the world walk, bike, or drive the trails of this pilgrimmage from its origins in Europe or different points in Spain and follow it until they arrive in Santiago.

Here is Santiago (St. James) slaying the Moors, who controled Spain from the 8th century to nearly the 13th, when the Spanish Catholic Kings expelled them from the country. During a battle between the Christians and Moors in the north of Spain, legends say that the image of St. James the Apostle could suddenly be seen in the midst of the battle on horseback fighting against the North Africans. Hence they've gone crazy for it ever since.

Santiago de Compostela has a wonderfully preserved old part of town. I really liked the whitewashed buildings and box windows.

Here is the altar of grand reverance to Santiago inside the cathedral. There's a lot of gold.




I'd really like to walk the Camino de Santiago this summer if I can. Many people do the pilgrimmage in stages, since it's really quite long. From the border of France and Spain, the pilgrimmage is 760 kilometers. To walk this amount, at an average of 30 kilometers a day, it would take you about 26 days to reach Santiago.

You would go through famous northern Spanish cities like Pamplona, Logrono!!!, Burgos, and Leon on your way. So, it's a month long vacation, and if I end up doing it (because I would want to do the entire way through Spain walking, which would take me a month) I will definitely write a lot more about it.