Spanish flying II

We were in Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain, and Daddy Dear was busy with his conference. With left the accompanying persons – as Mum and I were used to being called – with not much to do but gently wander through the city and be good tourists. So, draped with warm woollies, cameras and affectionate advice from friends and a relative, we wandered off after a breakfast of milky coffee, croissants and good cheer. The morning was chill, the breeze cutting through my jeans and boots as if they were not there. We were driven down to the main square and then abandoned.

But Santiago is a place where abandonment is the only route to take. You need to let go and absorb the history, the culture and, of course, the food, which is as delicious as Galician cuisine can possibly get, which is as delicious as Spanish cuisine can possibly get. But first the exercise, to take off the calories before you put them on. You walk up a series of steps and a ramp to get to the main Plaza del Obradioro, where grandees stepped over ancient stone and pilgrims made their way to the cathedral door. After all, the city is at the end of the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage path that leads to the blessings of Saint James the Apostle. At one edge of the plaza is the Plazo de Raxoi, seat of the Galician Junta, looming squat but powerful, almost as if it is making sure that only the true devotee will worship at the shrine.

The façade of the enormous church is awesome, its grey stone reflecting the cold and the sharp wind blowing bits of paper and, oddly, an empty box of film across the cobblestones. I watched it idly, wondering how far man has progressed and how he (and she, of course) still has not learned that no garbage is good garbage. Something of the kind, anyway. I was too cold to be my usual logically coherent self. I huddled for a moment against Mum as we gazed around the vast expanse of square and then, giggling a bit with chattering teeth, we ran inside the cathedral.

It was dark, as all medieval stone churches tend to be, and cold, but without the breeze to slice through all the wrappings to us. Candles formed brilliant but tiny auras of brightness around the altar and all along the walls, lighting up the stone faces of myriad saints tucked into their niches, watching over the crowds that prayed in silence and not so quietly, chanting as they watched the priest intone his verses in a soft, sibilant but carrying murmur. We sat down in one of the pews to watch, wait and, hopefully warm up, still huddling together with hands tucked into Mum’s shawl.

Suddenly there was a rushing sound and everyone looked up. The scent of a hundred flowers flowed over us, bathing us in the most divine cloud of reverence. An enormous sensor swung on its chain from the central dome high above our heads, an instant spike of vertigo and an irrational fear that the links would break and the massive metal container would come smashing down on the unprotected heads below. But nothing happened, and the incense holder went on its pendulum course, as it had done for so many years before us and would do for ever more.

We left the cathedral soon after a stroll around its confines, peering into the gloom at the pilgrims, the tourists and the saints. It was time to move on, to find more that the town had waiting for us. It was also time for lunch.