Well we’ve made it!  It was quite emotional walking up to the top of the Monte de Gozo, ie mount of joy, from where you can see the towers of the cathedral below.  The medieval pilgrim wouldn’t have seen the current towers, which weren’t built, but would have seen the city and cathedral below.  And it was equally emotional walking in to the Plaza de Obradoiro in front of the west door of the cathedral.  We were very lucky in arriving on a beautiful sunny day in late October, so we could not only take photos, but sit on the ground and take it all in for a bit.

Santiago is a mixture these days – my recollection from 30 years ago is that the churches and narrow streets were more prominent in shaping the atmosphere than they are today.  Those building still dominate the old town, of course: the cathedral, the church of San Francisco, the university, the town hall, and the old pilgrim hospital now repurposed into a 5 star hotel.  And the process of getting the compostela as a certificate of having walked here was moving and rewarding, though it brought home the numbers: arriving at about 3pm, I was number 688 for the day.  But right alongside all this are the signs of a tourist centre and of quite a big city.

There are souvenir shops everywhere, selling T shirts, shells, pins, stickers, models of St James, wristbands, neck chains, saucers, coasters, fridge magnets, notebooks, earrings, models of the waymarker stones, and that’s just what I can remember quickly.  Some we have bought, some are quite valuable, others are not, shall we say.  Young people dish out flyers for coach trips to Finisterre, which we actually did today – didn’t see much in the rain.  And there are masses of bars and restaurants, predictably quite a lot more expensive than on the road.

Alongside this again is a busy city.  The traffic here is far more congested than anywhere else we have seen, even Burgos and Leon.  As you come in from Monte de Gozo, the housing estates and industrial and commercial premises stretch up the hill in the distance, and it was clear from our coach trip that this activity extends on other sides of the city too.  The popularity of the pilgrim route will have something to do with this, but it must be linked to wider economic developments in Galicia.

So a medieval pilgrim destination is a bustling modern metropolis.  Personally I don’t regret that: the Camino is not a theme park, and pilgrims and local residents have always interacted in this way.