Santiago de Compostela

OK, so the week after we went to San Sebastián we went to Santiago de Compostela with a group that organizes trips for international students. This meant that it was both really cheap and that we were on a bus that left at 7 in the morning on a Saturday full of Italians and French students that hadn't ever gone to bed.
As appetizing as spending a day on a tour being herded around with 100 rambunctious Europeans seemed, I managed to escape with a small group. A couple of my Belgian friends had a friend from Belgium studying in Santiago, so we went with them and he took us around to some of his favorite places.
I *loved* Santiago. There was something about the air there. When I breathed, I was breathing in the atmosphere of centuries of faith, dedication, and sacrifice that it took to walk hundreds of miles. It was almost like the vigor of the inner lives of each single pilgrim over the course of centuries had contributed to building up this destination. This was the first place in Spain where I felt like I witnessed something vibrant and alive. The present moment is not ashamed to live off the past there...in fact, it simply cannot avoid or deny it...but at the same time doesn't treat that tradition with a rigidness that cannot permit new growth, which I feel happens in Oviedo and ends up making the faith something dusty that should be in a museum and not something with relevance to daily life.
Many people seem to find reasons to do the Way of St. James today that have nothing to do with faith at all. I have to admit that I don't really understand that, but I still felt inspired when I saw the backpackers arrive at their destination with a look of true appreciation in their eyes and joy on their faces, as they took some time simply to lay in front of the Cathedral and contemplate it. I felt like I shared something with them, even though I didn't know where they were from or why they had made the journey they just came from.
This is the view they were admiring:
This Cathedral is gorgeous. Every picture of it looks like a postcard. The inside was pretty impressive as well.
This is a random side altar I thought was pretty.
This is the famous and painfully politically incorrect St. James the Moor-Slayer.
Of course, the most impressive thing were the remains of St. James the Apostle that rest inside the Cathedral, which I was able to spend a good, long time with since the group I had escaped with were cool. As I was walking into the little room where those remains are, I was struck by the feeling that one day I have to do the Way of St. James, and that I should convince my friends to come with me. (I seem to have gotten my friend Carla on board and we are planning for summer of 2011...anyone else interested?)
Here is a random street that I liked:
After the Cathedral, we went to a park:
Magical? Why yes, it was.
This is the university campus. I was very jealous of the students.
On the whole, on every street corner there seemed to be a beautiful little church.


After Santiago we went to the Tour of Hercules, which according to the Romans was actually built by Hercules himself. I wasn't really all that taken with it. From there we went to A Coruña, which is on the coast but was extremely uninspiring. I only took one picture there and it was the blandest ocean photo I've ever seen, that doesn't even deserve space on the internet. After Santiago, it really just couldn't measure up.