Santiago de Compostela

Friday 6th June 2014

" Just as the Muslim tradition requires that all members of the faith, at least once in their life time, make the same pilgrimage that Muhammad made from Mecca to Medina, so Christinas in the first millenium considered three routes to be sacred. Each of them offered a series of blessings and indulgences to those who travelled its length. The first led to the tombs of St Peter in Rome, its travellers who were called wanderers, took the cross as their symbol. The second led to the Holy Sepulcher of Christ in Jerusalem, those who took this road were called palmists,since they had as their symbol the palm brancheswith with Jesus was greeted when he entered that city. There was a third road, which led to the mortal remains of the apostle, San Tiago - Saint James in English, Jacques in French, Giacomo in Italian, Jacob in Latin. He was buried at a place in Iberian Peninsula where, one night, a sheperd had seen a brilliant star above a field. The legend says that not only San Tiago but also the Virgin Mary went there shortly after the death of Christ, carrying the word of the Evangelist and exhorting the people to convert. The site came to be known as Compostela - the star field - and there a city had arisen that drew travellers from every part of the Christian world. These travellers were called pilgrims and their symbol was the scallop shell."

- excerpted from " The Pilgrimage" - a book written by Paulo Coelho

The above excerpt , apart from explaining the significance of Santiago de Compostela to the Christians, also explained how I was introduced into some knowledge about the town after having read the book of this famous Brazillian author.

Along this trip, Vero had also explained that San Tiago was the Evangelist who had spread Christianity to France and Spain. However upon his return to Jerusalem he was beheaded by the Romans. The Spanish followers went to Jerusalem, and managed to smuggle out his remains to be secretly buried somewhere in the Iberian Peninsula. A town was built from where his remains was beleived to have been found and from there this city has grown over the years to become an important pilgrimage centre. Devotees walk a distance of about 700km from France across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compotela. There are also other routes from Portugal and along the northern coastal route as the one we are doing on this train journey.

 After checking in at our hotel ( located in the newer part of the town near the train station ) Vero led the group to walk towards the Old City. She first took us to a park - noisy with blaring music due to a kind of fun fair taking place there - because from that park we would be able to get a vantage point to view the Cathedral and the Old City