Thursday 21 june - Santiago de Compestella

Woke at 6,  got dressed and slipped out to find a coffee shop. It was misty rainy out but not cold. just damp. I love misty mornings in SdC. the lights shine off of the stone buildings and roads with such a nice glow. Alone in the quiet morning, I went across the big square to the St. Francis hotel hoping that they would have a coffee shop but they did not. They did tell me about a coffee shop around the corner from them which I found with very little trouble.

I ordered a tea and sorted through my purse and wallet collecting receipts from almost every pocket. I sorted them out and registered them in my journal.  Information for posterity. Had my second cup of tea by 7:30. The woman who was running the hotel had a child, a young boy living with her, maybe her son, and he did not want to cooperate with her as quickly as she wanted him to. They had words and she won. I felt bad for both of them. And for me too come to think of it.

Went back to the hotel around 8 and had breakfast with Maureen of toast, tea and 'cafe con perdo', strong coffee.  The toast was sliced day old croissant put through a panini machine. It was very good. back to the room to get organized. The bells were ringing all over the place. Lovely. We headed out around 9 to go to a convent (#11 on the map) and several churches (#s 13,14,15) in town.

The first thing we found was this great park with  an odd but fun statue of the two Marias and enormous 100 year old oak trees lining the pathways. We wandered through the park. there were several views of the cathedral over the roofs of the city and one viewpoint of the cathedral and a reflecting pool with a nice bench to rest at which was lovely.  There were actually lots of benches along the path. Just past the small reflecting pond was a very large 150 year old ecalyptus tree. Beautiful.

The park is well used by joggers, old folks, students,  dog walkers (who pick up after their charges), a few business men with briefcases and tourists but it was not crowded. I am not sure how many acres there are in the park but it was very large.  We wound our way up to a church on the top of the hill and then down the other side. It was nice and quiet in the center of the park and you could hardly hear the city around you.

 I had to use the washroom and went ahead of Maureen. Found one at the edge of the park at the bottom of the hill, beside a souvenir booth that was closed. There was a small building for park admin and park programs across a small square so went in and asked the lady there about the trees with the great bark.

She told me it was Platanus × hispanica.  (you have to imagine that there was a deal of sign language and bad spanish involved on my part but luckily her english was pretty good). I have seen this tree all over Spain. It is a great tree. I went back up the hill and met Maureen coming down.

We exited the park and after checking our map and realizing that we were not sure where we were Maureen asked a lady at a travel agency and  she kindly pointed out where we were. We found and went into a great store to shop in, the Punta Roma store. Maureen bought a shirt and I bought two souvenir scarves made in Italy as gifts for others. The end of one visa card. I am trying not to spend too much so that I have some money for Paris where, I hear, things are quite expensive.

We found the convent using our map.  It is a cloistered convent, you cannot get into it and they cannot get out. Just a small window with a curtain in the wall and a bell. There was a lady at the window so we didn't get too close until after she left. I don't know if I could join a cloistered order. The outside of the building was nice, simple  with a great blue door.

The Church Maureen wanted to see was closed. We went into several different buildings, schools of some sort associated with the university we think.
Up and across the street we went through an arch and down a road,  around a corner into a square or 'Praza' with a few shops and a restaurant, a right turn past the university (it was the Praza Univeristie) and we decided to have have a drink and use the washroom at the restaurant. A little further up the road past the univeristy we found a market.

That was fun. Carne (meat), fruita (fruit) and varienta (cheeses and dairy,veggies, flowers, jams and jellies, gifts, assorted stuff).  I bought 2 euros worth of peas which turned out to be a huge bag of them. There was a very old church more than 1100 years old right beside the market. one of the first churches in the city. It was closed too. We followed our map to the next church that we wanted to see and the lady was locking the door in our face. OKay.... we continued on to a church just down the road. there are lots of churches in this city.

 The front of the building had a fresco of either  a whole group of people walking through red grass, or people burning, or maybe a red blanket at a teen sleepover? on it. It was open and so we went in and did a quick run through. I said some hail Mary's and lit some candles but when I looked for a place to put the money for the candles I could not find a box. I asked the old man who was there and he showed me, he was very nice. As we were leaving he locked the building up behind us and went away probably to his lunch.
We went back to the restaurant by the university and had a lunch of eggs and pickles asparagus which was pretty tasty really.

 After popping into a few more churches, saying a few more hail Marys', lighting a few more candles and walking past a lineup of men getting a free lunch we followed the road back to the cathedral. Maureen wanted to get somethings at a gift shop and I needed stamps to I went into the Correo (Post office) and got 2 stamps for post cards I had written at lunch.

One for Dan and one for Shauna. Nice cards. Dropped my things off at the hotel and got a little bit of a fright as when I walked in, the door to our room was open.(our room was right off the foyer of the hotel) It was OK though as they were just cleaning the bathroom and making our beds.
 I went to the cathedral and found out that in order to walk on the balcony we would have to go on the roof top tour,  the english tour  starting at 7. OK, I bought our tickets and went back to find Maureen.
We went shopping. I bought 2 water colour paintings at the outside post office art gallery walk. The celtic influence here is very strong in their music and decor. We stopped in at several souvenir shops picking up the odd thing  here and there. I found a labyrinth necklace, some little shells with gold trim and a CD of Galicia music which sounded very much like celtic music from the shop where the owner of the shop was baby-sitting his very young son and trying to take care of customers too. We, the customers, took turns amusing the child until it was our turn to pay for our purchases. Maureen and I  then had a tapis break in this very cool quiet restaurant. The gentleman played Van Morrisson's brown eyed girl for Maureen.
They, the Spanish, really like North american rock and roll from the late 60's early 70's or maybe that is the demographic that they are aiming to draw in. We were the only customers in the place. The building had been a storage house about 1000 years ago and they had renovated it into a restaurant with plexiglas over the well and storage bins. very interesting. heard some bag pipes being played and found a young man playing what sounded like celtic music. Gave him some euro change. He was pretty good.
Walking back to the hotel we passed another tapis bar that looked very good and decided that we would go there for supper. Met a crazy lady on the way back who yelled at me, I believe, because I looked at her when she dropped some garbage on the street. It takes all kinds. The streets were very crowded by this time of day. Lots of pilgrims and tourists. Lots of shoppers. But almost everyone was pleasant and happy.
We went back to the hotel room and organized our things (well I organized my things) and ate peas. At 6:30 we headed over to the cathedral for the tour.
we were a little early and so hung around watching the crowds. The sun had been out for quite some time and the day had turned out quite hot. Luckily there was a breeze.
Promptly at 7 the tour began. A young girl whose english was not bad at all herded about twenty of us through a door and into another world of the cathedral. We entered the Palacia de Archbishop and the quiet world behind the scenes. I don't remember it all but Wikipedia will help us out and I will inject my notes as well.

According to legend, the apostle Saint James who had visited spain in 44Ad-ish was beheaded in Jerusalem and his  remains were later brought back to Galicia by angels in a stone boat.  His tomb was abandoned in the 3rd century following Roman persecutions of Spanish Christians. Then this tomb was rediscovered in 814 AD by the hermit Pelagius, after witnessing strange lights in the night sky. The Bishop Thoedomirus  of Iria recognized this as a miracle and informed king Alfonso II of Asturias and Galicia (791-842). The king ordered the construction of a chapel on the site. Legend has it that the king became the first pilgrim to this shrine.  

(The fact that the Holy land was now very dangerous for pilgrims and that this would be a safer pilgrimage for all those Europeans wanting to go on a pilgrimage worked out just fine for everyone.) The chapel was followed by a first church in 829 AD and again in 899 AD by a pre-romanesque church, at the order of king Alfonso III of Leon, causing the gradual development of a major place of pilgrimage. In 997 this early church was reduced to ashes by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir (938-1002), army commander of the caliph of Cordoba. 
The gates and the bells, carried by Christian captives to Cordoba, were added to the Aljama Mosque. When Córdoba was taken by king  Ferdinand III of Castile in 1236, these same gates and bells were then transported by Muslim captives to Toledo, to be inserted in the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo.

Construction of the present cathedral in SdC began in 1075 under the reign of Alfonso VI of Castile (1040–1109) and the patronage of bishop Diego Peláez. It was built according to the same plan as the monastic brick church of Saint Sernin in Toulouse, probably the greatest Romanesque edifice in France. It was built mostly in Granite. (Every block had a mark on it made by the stone mason who carved it. That was how they kept track of how much to pay each mason. Clever. We went up a narrow back stair case and into a hall overlooking the courtyard we had just been in. at the end of the hall was a room that was once a waiting room for visiting dignitaries. the talk continued.)

Construction was halted several times and, according to the Liber Sancti Iacobi, the last stone was laid in 1122. But by then, the construction of the cathedral was certainly not finished. The cathedral was consecrated in 1128 in the presence of king Alfonso IX of Leon.

According to the church records, the architects were "Bernard the elder, a wonderful master", his assistant Robertus Galperinus and, later possibly, "Esteban, master of the cathedral works". In the last stage "Bernard, the younger" was finishing the building, while Galperinus was in charge of the coordination. He also constructed a monumental fountain in front of the north portal in 1122.

(We entered a large hall with these great vaults separated by carved stone and plaster dividers on the ceiling. There were fancier dividers at the front of the hall and plainer at the rear. It seems that mass was said here and the wealthier folks were at the front and the poorer were at the back. All along the sides were carvings, each one different portraying some activity from life. there was also displays of musical instruments that would have been played 1000 years ago).

The church became an episcopal see in 1075 and, due to its growing importance as a place of pilgrimage, it was soon raised to an archiepiscopal see by pope Urban II in 1100. A university was added in 1495.

The cathedral was expanded and embellished with additions in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
 We went through a door and onto the inner balcony or upper balcony inside the cathedral.  We were looking down the nave and the wall behind us was Romanesque and the facade on the outside of that was Baroque. like a sandwich the front of the cathedral is Baroque and the inside is romanesque. they built a facade to protect the original romanesque front of the cathedral

The barrel-vaulted nave and the groin-vaulted aisles consist of eleven bays, while the wide transept  consists of six bays. Every clustered pier is flanked by semi-columns, three of which carry the cross vaults of the side aisles and the truss of the arched vaults, while the fourth reaches to the spring of the vault. Lit galleries run, at a remarkable height, above the side aisles around the church.

The choir is covered by three bays and surrounded with an ambulatory and five radiating chapels. The vault of the apse is pierced by round windows, forming a clerestory. The choir displays a surprising exuberance in this Romanesque setting. An enormous baldachin (a canopy of state over the altar), with a sumptuous decorated statue of Saint James from the 13th century, rises above the main altar. The pilgrims are allowed to kiss the saint's mantle via a narrow passage behind the altar. (I did not do that)

In the choir aisle one remarks the beautiful lattice work and the vault of the Mondragon chapel (1521). The radiating chapels constitute a museum of paintings, retables, reliquaries and sculptures, accumulated throughout the centuries. In the Chapel of the Reliquary (Galacian: Capela do Relicario) is a gold crucifix, dated 874, containing an alleged piece of the true cross.

From our choir loft vantage point we could see a lot of the church. the tour guide pointed out the romanesque and the baroque joinings . Then we went through a small door, I thought to go out onto the balcony that overlooks the big square, and went up some narrow winding stairs for quite a distance and came out onto the roof! I knew it was called the rooftop tour but somehow that had not sunk into my brain that they really meant we would go onto the roof. My stomach was a little queazy. But oh so exciting too! Scary but exciting!

The roof, which has large tiles arranged almost like angled steps, was used by the guards to protect the cathedral from enemies in time of war. It was easy for the guards to run across the roofs from side to side without fear as there is a balustrade so you cannot fall off. It takes a minute or two to get used to the angle of the roof but after that it is so cool. There is a great view in every direction. The roof is the highest point in the city, with a great view of the orangey-red, terracotta roofs that  seem to go on for miles. The whole roof spans 318 feet and is 72 feet high.

From there we went all over the roof to each side of the cathedral. Maureen having a greater fear of heights than myself kept to the walls and lower on the roofs closer to the balustrades. There was an open air violin concert on one side so we had a little beethoven while we wandered. the tour guide was giving us a lot of great information as we went along but I am afraid that I was slightly distracted and so did not remember very much.
The roof is not just one roof  but what seems to be a collection of roofs over each section of the cathedral. There was some climbing of stairs to get to different levels and crossing from one roof to another, and looking in of windows at the top of the cathedral over the altar.  we stayed up on the roof for about 30 minutes before gong back down by way of a different staircase and down into the cathedral proper where we were shown around to the hi lites within. 
After this Maureen and I went out to the tapis bar we had seen earlier. It was packed so we knew that it must be good. We had deep fired chilies and cheese , deep fried cheese with blackberry jam in an almond crust and a ham and cheese croquet for Maureen 

that were all really tasty. The beer helped calm our nerves after our traumatising but very fun expierience on the roof of the cathedral. What a great day! The thing about Tapis is that one is never sure of the serving size. Maureen got two little croquets and I got two nice size almond cheese things and a huge dish of peppers. 

We could not finish the whole thing so when we left we offered the half of the plate we did not eat  to the people who took our seat. I don't know if they ate it but we left happy and full. the streets were still crowded with people going out to eat and some of the shops were still open. we made our way back to our hotel and after much laughter and giddyness we both fell asleep right away.

Music