Santiago de Compostela

Another beautiful old town with a beautiful old cathedral.

But this one has a twist. It’s not another unidentified virgin landing site. This one (and the town) is based around one of the desciples, or more specifically, one of the twelve apostles.

James, or more famously the 5th from the right in The Last Supper.

Now at some point in his life (spoiler alert: the end of it), he returned to Jerusalem, somewhat annoying the Roman in charge. As a consequence, he rather lost his head over it. Quite literally.  

Anyway…

In the fine print of the desciple contract, it says that you must be buried in the land where you did your good works. So a couple of his followers suddenly found themselves with the job of getting him back to this part of the world. So he was buried here. 

Fast forward a few centuries, and his tomb was discovered, and the quickly decided whose it was. The first clue was that his head and shoulders were further apart than you would normally expect.

So they built a chapel, then a church, then a cathedral on the site. Like upgrading your hotels in Monopoly.

The town grew around it, along with a new industry. Pilgrimages. This place has developed into one of the major pilgrimage destinations in the world. The Camino de Santiago is famous. Think ‘The Amazing Race’ for Catholics.

Let the statues begin…

As expected, nice old buildings 

 

These sarcophagus certainly don’t come in a 4XL, but I’m more interested in what goop they expect to drip out of these drain holes in the bottom. 

I never knew the holes were there. 

Do they put a bung in them, and let the bodily fluids and general decomposition fill the bath before they flush it?