Mittwoch, 25. Juli 2007

Trip to Galicia

Santiago de Compostela is one of the most important holy ground for Christian. For many centuries, pilgrims walked all the way to Galicia to visit Santiago. The reason that the city became so important is that the grave of St. Jakob (in Spanish, Santiago) is found in this region in 9th century. Since then, many pilgrims from all over the Europe have visited Santiago in order to pray.



Santiago is academic, holy and rainy city.




The day I visited was also rain. The Plaza Obradoiro (Spanish) looked darker than I thought.




As I entered in the Cathedral, I found information of the history.
It is very old architecture built in 11th century.



In the middle, there is a golden statue of saint. People could walk up the narrow stairs and go behind the statue. Some parts of the statue was worn off due to the handprints of thousands of people.




It was very big cathedral. Even now in this age, people follow the same route which old pilgrims took from France. Now people can use car or other transportations, but truly loyal Christian still walk or use bike for sacred visit.




As I wrote last time, I'm never been religious person but these stories of loyal Christians continued many centuries impress me.

I personally believe in my internal god. But sometime I feel something warm from the statue, for example the photo above. Then I think, my inner god might look like this.

The day we visited Santiago was raining all day. It was the real aspect of the city which is known as "Rainy City".



Next day, as we drove back to Madrid, slowly sky has cleared up.






Medina del Campo where we stopped by was also very pretty. The collaboration of scenery and old architecture is beautiful.

As we left Galicia, the sky completely opened and real Spanish summer came back.

Even it was a very short visit over the weekend, I saw many different faces of Spain. I touched not only it's passion but also the deepness of the history.

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