Sightseeing in Santiago de Compostelo

Santiago de Compostelo’s old city, the Casco Antiguo, is one of the finest in all of Spain. For all touring purposes there is little reason to venture outside of it. Much of the architecture in the old city was resurfaced during the 17th and 18th century in the Baroque style. The busiest areas are in the squares around the Catedral, first constructed in the 11th century along with the three original streets adjoining it, Rúa Nova, Rúa do Vilar and Rúa do Franco. Befitting a city to which people arrive from thousands of miles away on foot, cars are restricted through most of the area (and would probably get stuck anyway). The sights, smells and stories are all in and around this neighborhood, scattered among cobblestone streets spreading out from the Catedral as far as the trace of the former medieval walls.

Before the Catedral

Surrounded by regal buildings on all four sides, the Praza de Obradoiro marks the final steps of the pilgrim and the point from which the town of Santiago de Compostela expanded during the years following the discovery of the sepulchre of the Apostle. The Praza is named for a workshop that occupied the space between 1738 and 1747; here the granite stones were carved for the new Baroque façade of the Catedral to replace the earlier Romanesque façade. With its two Baroque towers mottled in gray and splotches of yellow moss, the Catedral looms commandingly over the plaza. Adjoining it to the left is the Palacio de Xelmírez (open 10 am-1:30 pm and 4-7:30 pm, entry 1.50i), a stark 12th-century palace that retains the Romanesque design it once shared with the Catedral.

Directly across the Praza from the Catedral is the Neoclassical Pazo de Raxoi, built in 1772 as a confessor’s seminary and residence for choirboys and now site of the town hall. The bas-relief depicts the Battle of Clavijo with Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor Slayer). Historians doubt whether the battle of 844 – in which Santiago reincarnate is said to have inspired Christians in the struggles with the infidels by dispatching a Moorish troop – ever took place. Facing the Catedral, El Colegio de San Jerónimo is to the right, founded in 1501 and with a façade borrowed from the oldest pilgrim’s hospital, formerly located behind the Catedral in the Praza de Inmaculada. Opposite it is the Antiguo Hospital Real, a plain rectangular edifice of two stories embellished with an elaborate plateresque doorway. The hospital was established by the Catholic monarchs in the 16th century to house and treat sick pilgrims and is now a Parador de Turismo, the Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos.

Behind the Catedral

Pass between the Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos and the Palacio de Xelmírez on Rúa de San Francisco to reach a series of prazas along the backside of the Catedral. The first, Praza do Inmaculada faces the north façade of the Catedral from the colossal Monasterio de San Martín Pinario. It is commonly referred to as the Praza de Azabachería for the craftsmen of the jet-stone (azabache) guild that once gathered here to make rosaries for sale to pilgrims. The 20,000-square-foot monastery was built in the 17th century on the site of a no doubt smaller 10th-century monastery and now serves as a student dormitory. Its 16th-century Baroque church is around the far side past the Romanesque cloisters, complete with incomplete towers, construction of which was allegedly halted when church patrons complained that they might overshadow the Catedral’s own towers.

Continuing around to the eastern side of the Catedral is the Praza de Quintana, a former cemetery with a surprisingly upbeat appeal despite its metaphysical division between the living (the top of the square, known as La Quintana de Vivos) and the dead (the lower half, La Quintana de Muertos). Hovering over the square is the Torre de la Trinidad, the city’s clock tower with the emblematic bell, La Berenguela. Originally built in the 14th century, the tower was reworked in the 18th century in a Baroque vein.

The Catedral’s Puerta Santa (Holy Gate) opens on to this plaza, but only during a holy year, when the feast day of Santiago, July 25th, falls on a Sunday. The gate is, not surprisingly, Baroque, but decorated with Romanesque sculptures taken from the old choir. From the living part of the square, Casa de la Parra faces Casa de Canga; both mansions were built around the turn of the 18th century. Between them and opposite the Catedral is the Iglesia y Convento de San Paio, founded in 1707 and with a Roman altar stone used by the earliest disciples of the Apostle.

On to the last square, the Praza das Praterías (Square of the Silversmiths) preserves the only Romanesque façade and portal of the original Catedral.

La Catedral

On the 25th of July, 813, the sepulcher of the Apostle St. James was discovered near this site in the village of San Fiz de Solovio. King Alfonso II promptly ordered a monastery built to honor the saint who had been beheaded in 44 AD in Palestine. With the spread of the news and the ongoing battles with the Moors, Santiago de Compostelo soon became a rallying point for Christianity in Spain and well beyond. Under Alfonso III, a grandiose basilica replaced the modest monastery, only to be destroyed when the Moorish ruler Almanzor sacked the town in 997. The Baroque shell of the Catedral that stands today conceals much of the original Romanesque exterior begun in 1075; for the most part, the interior maintains its Romanesque design.

The main entrance is off the Praza do Obradoiro through the Pórtico de la Gloria, left, a mind-boggling Romanesque jewel sculpted by Maestro Mateo in 1188. The portal is highlighted by a large archway divided by a mullion and flanked by two smaller archways, together bearing 200 realistically carved biblical figures. Beneath the central arch is the largest sculpture – that of Christ with the four evangelists seated in twos on either side of Him. Equally compelling are the 24 old men of the Apocalypse that seem to defy gravity as they play instruments side-by-side along the arc above Christ. In the center mullion, just beneath Christ, is the Apostle St. James. Beneath the Apostle, look for the worn area that is ritually touched by pilgrims prior to entering the Catedral. The side arches depict prophets and scenes from the Old Testament on the left and monsters dining on sinners in a rendition of the Last Judgment on the right. On the backside of the mullion, take note of the so-called Santo dos Croques (Saint of the Bumps), a stone rendition of Maestro Mateo said to bestow wisdom on any who bump their heads against it.

The central nave, with its vaulted Romanesque ceiling looking as old as it should, leads directly to the garish but nonetheless astoundingly ornamented Baroque main altar; before this dizzying array of golden filigree and cherubs topped by the sculpture of St. James the Moor Slayer the fantastical botafumeiro hangs a giant censer 1½ meters (five feet) high and weighing 50 kilograms (110 lbs). During special ceremonies eight men known as Tiraboleiros are required to swing it in a great arc across the transept, showering the Catedral with incense and glowing embers.

The Romanesque statue of St. James set behind the altar, shown at right, is the show-stopper. Their arduous journey almost complete, pilgrims traditionally file up the steps and around behind the statue, give it an embrace and breathe a sigh of relief. Stairs lead down to the elaborate silver tomb sheltering the remains of the Apostle directly under foot. Ironically, the relics of the Apostle were lost again after they were hidden from the marauding Sir Francis Drake in 1589. A historian recovered them in the 19th century.

The Museo y Tesoro de La Catedral’s motley collection is spread between the Catedral’s cripta (crypt), tesoro (treasury) and rooms off the claustro (cloister). The main exhibition spaces of the cloister are accessed from the Praza do Obradoiro. Inside, there seems to be a concerted effort to diagram and explain the processes behind the various construction and reconstruction phases the Catedral has undergone.

One room is given over to a scale reproduction of the Catedral’s original stone coro, an immaculate piece of craftsmanship by Maestro Mateo that was needlessly destroyed to make way for a wood coro that itself would eventually be removed. Ah the travesty. A wealth of 16th- and 17th-century tapestries attributed to the Flemish, French and Spanish crafters (along with a few machines) are on display.

The library houses the botafumeiro, that massive and intimidating censer, as well as the 12th-century Codex Calixtinus, a detailed log of the Camino de Santiago by the Frenchman Aymeric Picaud and credited as the world’s first guidebook. Various Romanesque sculptures and tombs have been culled from discoveries in the Catedral’s crypt, a beautiful barrel-vaulted church which is accessed directly beneath the front steps of the Catedral.