According to legend St James the Elder was one of the Apostles of Jesus (and also his cousin) tasked with spreading the gospel in the Iberian Peninsula. At some point he was lured back to the Holy Land where Herod promptly had his head cut off. Thereafter a group of angels transferred his headless body back to Spain in a boat (airfares were no cheaper then than they are now) and after various vicissitudes a group of Christians gained permission to bury him in what is now Santiago de Compostela. He is the patron saint of Spain and according to yet another legend appeared miraculously to assist the Spanish in winning a battle against the Moors. What he was doing during all the battles the Spanish lost to the Moors is unrecorded.
All I can say about the above is that people have believed stranger things than this and indeed still do. Anyway bearing as it did the body of one of the Apostles Santiago etc. has flourished as a pilgrimage centre as the faithful flocked from all over the world to gain grace by association. The medieval equivalent of Airbnb and tourist shops catering to/taking advantage of the faithful as they stumble the last few miles along a network of trails that led from all over Europe and zeroing in on Santiago.
Into this centre of devotion came our little tourist group on a bus from Porto that appeared to be on its last legs. We dumped our bags and started looking around for the nearest Zara store. Santiago has such a store of course because after weeks walking on muddy tracks the most pressing need of all pilgrims is new clothes. Inhabitants of the town would probably prefer that they have a bath.
Once ensconced in our hotel our guide with what may or may not have been a malicious gleam in her eye informed us that we would only do a brief orientation walk so that we would be fresh for the fifteen kilometre hike tomorrow along the last part of the pilgrim trail. Desperately I scanned the itinerary, surety I hadn’t signed up for this. Well apparently I had. I would be joining a gang of gourd toting, scallop shell bedecked religious maniacs for the last stage of their journey towards salvation or at least Santiago de Compostela.
The next day having stripped my day pack down to the bare essentials (water, cigarettes and anti inflammatories) I and my companions in implausible pilgrimation were dropped off at a random patch of the Spanish countryside. The pilgrim path is clearly marked so that travellers don’t wander on to motorways in fits of religious ecstasy. Signs on the motorway also warned of aircraft and low flying deer (I think I’ve got that right) so obviously there’s quite a bit going on in this part of Spain.
The path itself was pleasant, wending its way through forests and farmland except when we encountered villages. Then it wended its way through villages. Some thirteen kilometres of charming rural scenery later we wended our way through some of the lower rent sections of Santiago de Compostela en route to the cathedral.
Finally we stumbled into the cathedral, took photos of a scallop shell carving in the stone and pretended to have achieved the same state of grace as had been achieved by those who had been walking for days. Incidentally I checked it out later, a pilgrimage of fifteen kilometres gains forgiveness for one parking ticket or missing a distant relative’s birthday.
Some of the more religiously minded among us capped off their achievement by attending mass with our guide who had been conspicuous by her absence during our religious death march. I hobbled back to the hotel cursing pilgrimages in general and St James in particular. I’m pretty sure I’ve blown my parking ticket.
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