Dum Pater Familias(from YouTube) - The Magnificent Santiago Cathedral

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Spain has been in the wrong time zone for 70 years and it will be one factor that for a short while at least when we travel through Portugal we won’t have to endure. My sister Kathriona alerted me to the fact that just before WW2 that the country changed it’s time zone to be the same as Hitler who was running Germany at the time and wanted Madrid, a friendly country but not outwardly an allie,to be on the same time as Berlin. Just what his deeper reasons were perhaps is not fully clear but he never got to invade Spain as he did with other Western European countries where he also altered their time zone to that of Germany.

All this plays havoc with your mind as the sun is so late in getting up at 8.10am especially when it is usual to wake with the sun, getting ready for the day and then getting up.

One gets the feeling the day is half done before one gets into gear with what needs to done.

We left our sightseeing of the Cathedral and its environs until today as we thought the weather would have improved and indeed it had.

Well, at least there is no rain and it will just be the rather cool temperature to contend with as we take a self guided walk.

We transited our way across the open field by the concrete path again checking on Peggy as went past. All the wheels and wing mirrors are still there and she looked on one piece OK.

There was no sign of life at the tent camp but perhaps they too have difficulty with this time zone thing as well or perhaps they just have nothing else to do today.

The map we have of the city is not as clear to follow as some others and the tourist office yesterday couldn’t offer us anything different. We could have done a ‘free ‘guided tour for 2 hours in English at 11am but that puts you under a time constraint when you might want to observe a particular place a bit longer and they can be an overload of information too much to absorb when you are travelling like us for so long and with so many places to visit. And anyway they are never ‘free’ and how do you decide if your €5 is enough when others are handing over bigger notes!

Having established a place to start we got underway but it took some time to find the first point of interest which was the last remaining portal to the old city. It had been hidden behind other buildings that had been constructed to the road as it is today. And just like happens in cities there is always traffic noise to spoil the video shot. To add to that we had to wait for a truck=k to edge its way carefully through the narrow portal. Well at least it has been retained as part of the sightseeing for tourists.

Santiago has a number of convents and seminaries but we were still a little surprised by two nuns walking towards us dressed in the full white habit and wimple which we then realised shows the importance of this city in the religious life and history of those who follow their faith completely.

Passing by many buildings that dated back to the 1400’s we left what is sort of a ring road around the old city and entered into the narrow streets mostly occupied by pedestrians. In saying that though you always have to be on the watch for vehicles as they are allowed to travel down those that are wide enough for their passage too.

Here we found the Church Santa Maria de Sara, a small church which was originally built in 10th century and then reconstructed in 100 or so years later.

In contrast to so many of the other grand cathedrals and churches we have been inside this rather plain and non descript church had its own charm. A lighted display at the altar gave an airy feeling about being inside as there was no other artificial lighting or very little natural light entering the nave. However it was a very good example and reminder just how old this city is and how the structures of Christianity have survived here.

The church is located in a Plaza, one of the larger open spaces we came across during our walk other than the huge Plaza do Obradoiro in front of the Cathedral.

In the old city you find all manner of small businesses and many not just geared towards the tourist which gives it a feel of a city going about its business for the locals as well.

A sign caught our eye as the body clock was saying its lunch time. It wasn’t the usual Spanish word for cafe being ‘cafeteria’ a word that we recall used to be used in New Zealand years ago but now more commonly called coffee shop. The word ‘pub’ was on the sign board which inferred to us that we could a beer inside to go with a tapas and bocadillo lunch. ‘Pub’ is not a word we have seen before in Spain but we guess it might have been used here to attract British tourists which today it actually did for as we sat having lunch a large group of English speaking women arrived in and took a table at the rear of the building.

We ordered our food and beers and sat up at the bar, where the locals usually sit or lean on taking to the people working behind giving service. It is here that you feel more like a local than sitting at a table as one might in New Zealand and you see and hear, even if you can’t understand anything that is said, more and feel part of the place.

We sat awaiting our food to arrive and supped on our Estella beer. Then in front of us, the person who served us placed two small tapas of meat balls in a tomato sauce. We looked at each other and agreed this wasn’t what we ordered and carried on supping on the beers thinking that perhaps the server had just placed them there to be delivered to someone else.

The tapa's sat there for another couple of minutes and then the guy came back to us and gestured with the words ‘gratis’.

We needed no other explanation, these tapas were free! And very tasty they were too as were the bacon and egg tapas Gretchen had chosen and the bacon filled bocadillo (long fresh bread roll about the size of a small baguette) that I chose.

With full stomachs we headed off for the Cathedral although we had one further stop to buy a stracciatella ice cream which was just too tempting not to pass by.

The scene changed again as we entered the immediate area of the Cathedral and for the first time on the BBA V3 we had a person coming up to us wanting money. He wasn’t the first beggar we have seen or passed just the first that fronted us as we walked along.

It isn’t that we don’t have empathy with these people but there are now so many that it can be difficult to decide or determine if they are genuinely homeless and destitute or not as some have had animals who look well fed and cared for, sometimes better than their owners, and one wonders whether they live in a house just like perhaps their owner does.

After we rejected his appeals to us he muttered something in Spanish which made us regret we didn’t learn more when we took our Spanish language night classes 4 years ago.

The huge Plaza de Obradoiro is where the pilgrims bring their walk to an end before entering the Cathedral where a mass is held every day at midday to recognise their achievement.

Today there were small groups of pilgrims, complete with the staves that had supported them for their walk to get here. Gathered together, laughing and all looking refreshed from whatever route they had taken to get to this third most important place of pilgrimage after Jerusalem and Rome. It certainly seemed like taking this pilgrimage also reinforces friendships made along the way.

The entry to the Cathedral itself is actually by a side door which means you don’t get the very dramatic scene of the gold High Altar immediately and you have to move into the nave itself to appreciate the enormous size of the interior of the Cathedral.

We are pleased we came to Santiago in the low season as we can imagine the Cathedral would lose much of its grandness when there are more people milling about inside with the resultant increase in background noise that is unavoidable.

We did the circuit taking in all the chapels as we went and then squeezed through the narrow opening to go beneath the altar to witness the tomb said to contain the remains of St James and two disciples in what are the original 9th century foundations.

Then we again squeezed through a tiny opening to walk up steps to behind the silver statue of St James from the 13th century that you can ‘embrace’. Well this is what the explanation said you can do although in reality all you can do is touch the statue.

The whole Cathedral is full both inside and outside of sculptures that have been added over the centuries. In fact there is so much to look at, because of the size of the building that you would need all day to take it all in.

Our only disappointment was that one of the spires was covered in scaffolding as it was being cleaned and this detracted a bit for the photos of the total Cathedral itself. However we should add that the other spire that had been cleaned looked quite smart.

The cleaners have a long way to go if their aim is to restore the colour of the building to its original appearance of the 11th century when the core of the building was constructed.

Walking home we agreed that the visit to the Cathedral would have to be the highlight of our time in Spain so far and it has been well worth the journey so far west in the country even if as ‘pilgrims ‘we came by car rather than on foot!

We finished off a very satisfying day of sightseeing with a pizza and a continuation of watching the BBC 2014 series of Strictly Come Dancing on YouTube. One doesn’t need TV in the apartment any more.

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