Camino de Santiago – Northern Spain

From Bordeaux, we roughly followed the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route to Vigo where we met up with friends and stayed for a month.

The Camino de Santiago is one of 3 approved Catholic pilgrimage routes (the others being to the Vatican and Jerusalem). Think about it as a series of brooks leading to streams leading to small rivers leading to large rivers from all over Europe leading to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela where it is said that the Apostle St. James is buried. The most popular pilgrimage route that the majority of pilgrims today use is from Biarritz across northern Spain, known as the Camino Frances (the French route). This is the route that we roughly followed. At many points, the walking path follows alongside the highway. We were surprised at just how many pilgrims we saw doing this route (100s!).

In order to be a certified pilgrim, you must register, walk (or ride your horse) the final 100 km to the cathedral or bike the final 200 km and get stamps along the way certifying that you followed the route. You can read more about it from their official website here: https://santiago-compostela.net/

Brugos

The cathedral in Brugos is one of the most spectacular churches I’ve ever seen. It was definitely worth the 10 Euro entrance fee! The cathedral is a very strange shape with rooms and chapels tucked into every nook and corner. It was also very ornate with carvings, plaster and paintings everywhere. Brugos also had a pretty cool entry gate to the old town and a couple of other nice-looking churches. But for the most part, the town (other than the cathedral) wasn’t that spectacular. I would recommend stopping for a few hours to see the cathedral and then moving on).

Ponferrada

In Ponferrada, we visited the Knight’s Templar headquarters castle. Since this route was such an important pilgrimage route and the Knights Templar were commissioned to protect pilgrims, they built their headquarters here to protect pilgrims who needed to cross the river here.

The castle was pretty spectacular with several exhibits. We actually ran out of time visiting it. The 2 hours we allocated weren’t enough! They had an amazing library and special book collection with tons of very old Bibles and books that were all handwritten and illustrated – incredible.

Santiago de Compostela

This was a very cool town. And there were so many joyous pilgrims who looked very relieved that they had finally made it – it really added to the atmosphere. We had to wait quite a while in line to get into the cathedral and upon entry it felt a bit disappointing. But this was because you enter from a side entrance. Once you see the actual altar and statue of St. James, it is pretty impressive. I’ve never seen an altar look like this with huge statues holding up the centerpiece. The organs were also amazing, covered with carved angels and musical instruments. We had to then go outside and get into a separate line to re-enter the cathedral to be able to go behind the statue of St. James (and hug him) and then go down to the crypt to see his burial tomb. We weren’t allowed to take photos of these areas.

Vigo

We went to Vigo to meet up with friends who were staying here to do a soccer camp. We stayed for a month in Vigo. Unfortunately, it rained pretty much every day… but we had a nice apartment and it was good to stay in one place and catch up on school and admin stuff. Vigo has a couple of nice areas in the old town, a pretty marina and is known for its seafood. However, other than that, I’m not sure I’d really recommend it as a place for tourists to go out of their way to visit.

On our last few days in Vigo, the sun finally came out so we walked around to explore Vigo’s beaches which were really nice. I can see why it’s a popular tourist spot in the summer.

And, we celebrated Halloween in Vigo. We had fun cooking some creepy food and then we walked into town where there were a few kids trick or treating at the stores (instead of private homes) and a great procession of people walking in white robes and masks ringing a bell (see video below).