Across Galicia

Templar castle church at Portomarin

The last two nights on the way were at a hotel in Portomarin followed by a wonderful restored manor house with internal servants access and a huge fireplace at Pazo Sedor, near Castelneda. Both of us are now fit in body and wind with no significant joint or foot problems. We have covered 18 to 20 km each day without difficulty although the largish lunches put lead in our bellies. Tonight is in the Hostal de Los Reys Catholicos in Santiago, a grand series of courtyards with box hedges in formal patterns. A wonderful dinner to finish our 180 km of the hilly bits.

There is some evidence that the Camino antedates its adoption by Christian pilgrims visiting the bones of St James, found miraculously in 813. He then became a major symbol of resistance against the moors, not least because the relics gave Santiago a reason to be recognized directly by Rome rather than through the Archbishop at Toledo, then in Muslim hands. Pre-Roman Celts, and others, regarded Finisterre, the westernmost part of the European mainland as the nearest anyone could get to the setting sun. As a cult object, the sun was the ultimate in daily death and resurrection, with the scallop shell representing Venus and rebirth. In the 5^th century, a bunch of Celtic refugees fleeing Saxon and other invaders, came from Brittany and before that Britain. Their bishop is recorded as attending a Council in what is now northern Portugal in the 6^th century. The Irish were back in small numbers in the 11^th century, when a chapel was built, leaving shamrocks and odd tonsures on St Laurent as evidence of their presence. The entrance door and a number of pillars were incorporated into a wonderful 12^th century church at Villadonna. The church is Templar and a few of the second sons who became knights have their tombs and effigies there. The daughters joined the family monastery until a suitable husband could be found – hence Villa Donna. In the 15^th century the Templars had been disbanded and new delicate frescoes were applied to the apse wall. It became a parish church when the monasteries were disbanded in the 19^th century.

By now there were lots of people walking or biking with lots of Australians and Kiwis. Walking into Santiago a window shot open above us and a voice called out “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” To which we responded, of course “Oi! Oi! Oi!” Only one pilgrim horse sighted, although horse was a category of transport. We heard 1500 arrived on our Saturday. Spire of the pilgrim church sighted at Mount of Joy, a few km after Lavacollos, where a pilgrim was supposed to wash themselves clean before entering Santiago. Dirty clothes were burnt outside the cathedral to get rid of fleas and smell, until the church caught fire in the 15^th century. And the cathedral mass includes a 60kg censer with incense to manage smelly pilgrims – and we were pretty sweaty – and dispense the spiritual disinfection.