Today I made the pilgrimage to see the shrine of Santiago de Compostela but I didn’t do it on my knees as it traditionally is done (Thank Heavens! My knees couldn’t take that.) Instead I went by bus. We docked in the port of La Coruña on an absolutely beautiful morning. I decided to take this tour because it went some place I’d been what seems like a million years ago when I was a kid living here in Spain and I’d forgotten everything about it.
Santiago (the Spanish name for James) de Compostela is reputed to be the site of the burial of the remains of St. James the Apostle. One never knows if it’s true if a particular saint or relic of Christ is in a particular place; it is really a leap of faith. In this case James is thought to have been the first of the Apostles to have been martyred by beheading. His bodily remains were somehow taken to Spain and according to legend lost there for a few centuries. Sometime in the 9th century a hermit shepherd observed strange lights in the forest and with the help of the local bishop found the remains. Anyway, they are now ensconced under the main altar in the magnificent cathedral in this city. Santiago (St. James) became and still is today the patron saint of Spain.
In the Middle Ages pilgrims began making the pilgrimage to Santiago on the Way of St. James. There are several routes but the most popular is the “French Route” which stretches across the northern part of Spain from the border at the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. By the way, Santiago is the capital of the Spanish province of Galicia in the far northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula.
Our drive took us right to the historic part of the city of about 180,000. This part is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We walked up to the central plaza where our guide Ana told us a little about the place. On one side is a former monastery which is now a Parador (hotel). The Spanish government more than a century ago appropriated some old castles, fortresses and religious order convents and monasteries and converted them into hotels around Spain. On another side is the building which is the medical school of the university in Santiago. A third is a municipal building and the fourth is the Basilica of Santiago de Compostela.
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| Ana, our guide, in front of a monument celebrating St. Francis of Assisi (there's a Franciscan monastery here near the Basilica) |
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| The entrance to the Parador where we had lunch |
The Basilica was begun in the 11th century and consecrated in the 13th century but it was not completed at that time. Additions and embellishments continued for several centuries, even as late as the 18th century. For that reason the building displays a hodge-podge of styles of architecture. The basic is Romanesque which is pretty plain . On to that base there are more intricate Gothic layers and then baroque ones. It’s an interesting mélange of styles. We had a time slot to tour so our first order of business was to have a lunch of tapas and wine in the Parador. It was all very good and way too much food. Actually it turned out well that we did the majority of our walking after lunch to work it off.
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| Main entrance and façade of the Basilica |
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| This and the next photo are some wooden sculptures in the small museum we passed through on the way to the main level of the church |
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| A cloister outside one part of the main church. You can see in the details a variety of architectural styles |
The Basilica is very ornate inside with lots of gold statuary and columns, in true Spanish style. I’m not going to really describe much of what I saw except for one truly unusual one of a kind thing. Above the main level of the church is a gallery. Over the ages when there weren’t many lodging places for pilgrims who came, the gallery was where many were permitted to stay when they arrived and while they prayed there. As you might imagine, these were a smelly lot because there were no bathing facilities and they came with chickens and who knows what else to feed themselves on their journey. Ana told us that the interior became quite aromatic. To counteract and dispel the aroma in the mid-19th century the Church commissioned the creation of a huge thurible, an incense burner, by a goldsmith. What he made and what was hanging in the nave in front of the main altar is an incredible sight. The Botafumeiro is the largest censer in the world. It is 5.2 feet tall and weighs roughly 180 pounds. It is suspended from nearly the roof of the transept and on Holy Days it is filled with 40 kilos of incense and swung from side to side by 8 red-robed men called tiraboleiros at speeds of up to 50 mph dispensing huge clouds of incense. Mind you, this thing is made of silver and gold! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately since the incense would have been overwhelming), it was not being swung during our visit.
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| A statue of St. James (Santiago) in a side chapel dedicated to him. That's all gold. Can you image the value with gold going for around $5000 per troy ounce! |
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| Hard to see (or grasp from this photo) but that's one side of the organ in the nave |
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| The main altar |
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| The Botafumeiro that would be filled with incense |
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| If you look closely you can see it and the rope suspending it. |
It is a very impressive Basilica and I am glad I came to see it again. I wish that the organ had been playing; it appeared massive with pipes on opposing sides of the nave up above the pews but below the gallery. Unlike many cathedrals I’ve been in there weren’t too many stained-glass windows but the golden artifacts around the side chapels and the main altar made up for that.
Then it was time to return to La Coruña. I think most of us took a little siesta on the ride back. A little personal aside note here. When my family lived in Spain, La Coruña was one of the places my father spent quite a bit of time. It was at the time the major port in western Spain and my father came here often to meet ships bringing US aid to Spain. Times have changed since then. The USA had three very large airbases (they are gone now) in Spain and one very large naval base down in the southern part. We still have that but at the moment the Spanish Prime Minister will not allow us to use that base even to refuel our aircraft on their way to the middle East. On the big municipal building facing the Basilica in Santiago there was a gigantic Palestinian flag draped down the façade. And there were protesters with signs proclaiming, “From the river to the sea” and some of the same slogans I’ve seen on the news on streets in Iran. It was startling to me to see those. Times do change!
Tomorrow we'll be in Gijon, a city in Asturias on the Bay of Biscay. I've been there a couple of times so I think I'll have another sea day in port. There aren't really many things to see there and it's supposed to be gloomy outside. Hasta mañana!
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