Santiago de Compostela

As much as I dislike the idea of obtaining actual information that might affect my perception of things, I signed up for a walking tour of Santiago de Compostela today and learned:

1. My estimate yesterday that I probably arrived here along with “hundreds” of other pilgrims was slightly off. Yesterday alone, 1,976 people arrived and requested an official certificate of having walked the Camino, and that doesn’t include people like me who didn’t get my passport stamped along the way. In high season, it’s not unusual for them to issue close to 4,000 every day and last year about a half million people got a certificate.

2. The ornate front of the cathedral is more or less a façade because during the time of baroque architecture, the church decided that the front of the cathedral wasn’t fancy enough, so they hired an architect to make it a little spiffier, resulting in the current look. The old one is mostly still there behind the new one.

3. The church liked their new look and feel so much that they wanted views from every direction to seem just perfect. One side of the church faced an apartment building, which didn’t provide great optics, so they built a wall directly in front of the apartment building with fake windows and doors to match the rest of the look and feel of the plaza. No word on how the residents felt about that.

I also shared some of my knowledge with the tour group. The tour leader (who was very nice) explained how the so-called “Catholic Kings” Ferdinand and Isabella thought the pilgrims weren’t being adequately cared for, so they built a huge hospital in Santiago de Compostela where everyone could get free health care. In an effort to build bridges of communication with our neighbors in other countries, I commented that Ferdinand and Isabella also expelled all of the Jews and Muslims from Spain, revoked their citizenship and seized their property. “Yes,” she said, “we do have a bit of a complicated history.”

Along the way, the tour guide showed us a convent and said that the nuns sell cakes and cookies baked according to traditional recipes hundreds of years old. Having made a Tarta de Santiago myself, I decided to put theirs to the test.

There was a dark entryway with no sign of life (shown at right). 

I was about to leave and noticed a tiny doorbell next to a shuttered window that had bars over it, appearing kind of like a prison to us, but I guess it looks like a store to nuns. I rang the bell, the shutter squeaked open and a little nun (sorry, she was actually little) asked what I wanted. I asked for a slice of a Tarta de Santiago; she reappeared with my cake and slid it through the bars. 

My approach was somewhat different than theirs (this is a picture of my cake and their slice). Not to judge, but while theirs clearly has a better chance of getting you eternal redemption, I think I win on presentation. And they seem to like sugar way more than I do. 

Anyway, you may have heard that the cathedral here has a huge swinging incense burner that weighs 120 pounds and hits 40 m.p.h. when it gets going. Because it is a place of worship, they only use it three occasions – on Fridays, on holy holidays, and when anyone from the public shows up and pays $500 to see it swing. Our tour leader has connections with church staff, who told her off the record that someone paid for morning mass tomorrow. I know where I’ll be.