Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Oct 7/11 SANTIAGO!!!

Before we left Monte Do Gozo, we wandered down the hill to where there were two status of Pilgrams standing pointing towards Santiago.  They were something! They stood over us and pointed towards Santiago in the distance.  I think these two figures were one of my very favorites that I'd seen thus far. 

Dad continued our walk into Santiago into the Cathedral grounds.  Here you'll find an open square that is where you view the front of the Cathedral and where you find all of the trekers/Peregrinos sprawled out on in having completed there this 500 mile journey.
The Cathedral is Huge and also absolutely enveloped with incredible detail.  It's hard to take it all in.
At 12 noon everyday they hold a mass for all the Peregrino's.  Dad and I sat through the service which was in Spanish, but being familiar with it in general it is easy to follow along.
Morten, Dad, Deklan, me and Els
We then went to collect our Compestellas...which is our certificates that we receive once when we've completed the Camino.  We ran into our German friends there, as well as the Norweigens. lol.  They beat us somehow.  All in good fun of course.
We found ourselves a Pension to stay in for the night and then did a little shopping.  We ran into our Irish friend Deklan who invited us out for dinner that night with a group of people he was meeting up with.  Dad said that Deklan (who seemed to be friends with EVERYONE) was someone they'd referr to as being full of the 'Blarney'. 
Anyway we met him in the square infront of the Cathedral and he, dad and I, as well as Els a woman from Holland and Morten and gentleman from Denmark enjoyed some fantastic food and a lot of wine and a couple rounds of shots.  Don't ask me what they were, but when we got back to the Pension it didn't take me long to fall asleep. :D .  It was a fitting end to a wonderful adventure.

1 comment:

Traillady said...

Wow - great blog. Thanks so much for sharing. Congrats on earning your compestela!