Pilgrim's Road

way that it would be extraordinary if Santiago did not prove something of an anti-climax, once I had stepped over the invisible barrier where the medieval walls once girded the city, there was never any danger that it would. As I wheeled Roberts down the paved arcaded streets of Santiago, I realised with delight that, just as crossing into Galicia had seemed like keeping the best of the journey until last, so this city was undoubtedly the jewel in its crown, a conviction which grew with every step.
    Santiago is built of a warm brownish granite that comes alive in the rain. Still wet from the recent downpour, the mica in the stone sparkled from every magnificent Baroque façade. I had not expected this Baroque elegance in what I had thought of as essentially a medieval city. But of course, nothing could be more natural. As the flow of pilgrims had swelled the cathedral coffers, so the city had continued to expand, and to add to and embellish its many churches and monasteries. Happily the greatest spate of rebuilding had been in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries when Spanish architecture was superb; and the decline in pilgrimage, which began soon afterwards, resulted in Santiago being preserved at its peak. Nevertheless it is a medieval city both in its layout and in its underlying structure. And, as I was soon to discover, the great Romanesque buildings are still to be found within their Baroque or Renaissance shells.
    But that sort of exploration would come later. What struck me immediately was the atmosphere. Here was no dead showpiece of a city, as many historic towns have become, but a place bustling with everyday life. Being a university city means that the streets are thronged with students as well as with foreign visitors, and townspeople go about their everyday affairs among them as they have always done. Santiago has a thousand-year-old tradition of accommodating large numbers of people, from kings to beggars, and this had clearly not been lost.
    There was none of the usual tourist tat to be seen either: the souvenir shops with their horrible stocks of cheap kitsch did not seem to exist. What was on display in Santiago seemed largely to come from Galicia itself, and to have a practical purpose. Restaurants were particularly numerous, their windows displaying such wonders as large octopuses boiled whole, mounds of St James’ own queen scallops, lobsters, crabs, oysters, and scores of other edible molluscs I had never seen before. Shops selling all manner of cheeses were also common — again there was an extraordinary range including ones shaped liked women’s breasts. Bookshops existed side by side with hotels, music shops, haberdashers and greengrocers. Shops catering expressly for tourists were those plying ancient trades in their traditional sites around the cathedral, like the jewellery workers in jet, the goldsmiths and the silversmiths.
    Everywhere there were sights to distract and divert a pilgrim from the traditional route. Even modern troubadours, usually students, sent up their beguiling threads of sounds from bagpipes, clarinets and fiddles under the shelter of the arcades. And because there was only foot traffic and the occasional bicycle in the flag-stoned streets and alleys, there was the opportunity to stop and gaze without having to leap for safety every other minute.
    So altogether it was small wonder that I felt I had plunged into the world of the Middle Ages as soon as I entered Santiago, and was tempted to stand and gawp like any country bumpkin at a hundred and one new wonders. But as all roads in a great medieval city radiate outwards from its heart, so everyone who enters its mesh will eventually be drawn to its true centre. Wander as aimlessly as you will in Santiago, sooner or later you emerge into the stunning magnificence of the Plaza del Obradoiro.
    What was once the ‘Field of the Star’ is now one of the noblest squares in Europe, and there are few people who do not catch their breath in astonishment at their first sight of it. The wide uninterrupted space spreads out in front of the soaring extravagance of the west wall of the cathedral, the Obradoiro façade — a name meaning ‘work in gold’ that has also been given to the plaza. Three other fine buildings flank the remaining sides, but it is the towering portico added to the Romanesque cathedral in the eighteenth century which needs every foot of the plaza to be appreciated in its full splendour.
    Santiago