Santiago de Compostela

Santiago de Compostela |

Maybe you’ve been walking for weeks. Or days.

Maybe you’ve walked 800km to get to Santiago de Compostela. Or 100.

Maybe you’ve done your Camino in one go. Or you’ve done it over a few years, a section at a time.

It doesn’t really matter. Arriving in Santiago, entering the Plaza del Obradoiro and finally seeing the catedral is always a very special moment.

There are several rituals and traditions that pilgrims generally follow, such as greeting fellow pilgrims with ¡Buen Camino! or Ultreia; getting your credencial stamped at least once a day; drinking Rioja from the wine fountain outside Estella or leaving a stone at Cruz de Ferro, on the Camino Francés, to name just a few.

So, of course, Santiago and its catedral have their own rituals too. The Cathedral’s webiste lists them: http://catedraldesantiago.es/en/pilgrimage/#rites

El Pórtico de la Gloria 

As you access the catedral from Plaza del Obradoiro, the first thing you see is the wonderful Pórtico de la Gloria, built by Maestro Mateo in the 12th century. Well, that’s the way it used to be. The Pórtico de la Gloria was closed for almost 10 years for restoration. It has reopened now and it can be visited, but you can no longer enter the cathedral through here.

So, if you’ve already done a Camino in the past 10 years, you missed it and you need an excuse to come back, this is it! The Pórtico de la Gloria was beautiful before, but it’s just amazing now.

There used to be a couple of rituals attached to the Pórtico de la Gloria, but they were causing damage to this work of art, so it’s not possible to do these anymore. One of them, which you can see in the movie The Way, was to place your hand on the centre pillar, under the statue of St. James.

At the back of this, there’s another little statue known as Santo dos Croques (literally the saint of the bumps). This is not really the image of a saint, but that of Maestro Mateo. According to tradition, you had to bump your head against the head of this “saint” in order to get wisdom and intelligence.

La cripta

Once inside the catedral, you should visit the cripta (crypt). There is a one-way system to access it, with stairs going down at one side of the main altar and going up the other way. The cripta is where the sepulchre of St. James is kept. On your way up, you can also embrace the image of the Apostle (or at least you could before Covid).

El Botafumeiro

 El Botafumeiro, I’m sure you already know, is this big censer that gets used during special occasions. It weighs over 50kg (over 100 pounds) and measures around 1.5 metres in height (5ft). It hangs from the main dome of the cathedral and it takes 8 men to swing it.

When can you see it? It has some fixed dates you can check in advance:  http://catedraldesantiago.es/liturgia/#botafumeiro

You can also request it by contacting the Cathedral (and paying around €500). Groups do this all the time, so you might be lucky and be able to see the Botafumeiro in action outside of those fixed dates.

During Holy Years, the Botafumeiro used to swing daily during the Pilgrim’s Mass or Misa del Peregrino, but that’s not the case anymore. 

La Puerta Santa

You can only enter the cathedral through the Puerta Santa (Holy Door) during Año Santo or Holy Year (it can also be referred to as Xacobeo, in Galician), i.e. those years when July 25 falls on a Sunday.

The day before an Año Santo begins,  the Puerta Santa is opened in a ceremony performed by the Archbishop. At the end of the year, this door will be closed again and remain so until the next Año Santo. Access to the Puerta Santa is from Plaza de la Quintana.

Today’s Spanish words

¡Buen Camino!