DAY 48 SANTIAGO DI COMPOSTELLA
The COMPOSTELLA
A few km in town, mainly looking at souvenir shops. Quite cold and rainy.
Santiago. FIRST THING in the morning, getting the Compostella, the document that assures that you arrived to Compostella and finished your pilgrimage. I had always thought that all your sins were gone and blown away after a Camino. BAD SURPRISE.... that happens only during the holy years and the next is in 2027. BUT, most of them are gone. Feel a bit lighter anyway.
Well, to come back to getting the Compostella. It is different models depending if you did the Camino for religious or for spiritual or for sporting reasons. The best looking model in Latin with your name in Latin is delivered to religious pilgrims. We had a long discussion the day before about where and when spirituality turns out to be a religious rite... well according to two of the camino friends, it was perfectly acceptable to get the religious one while one of the others and my husband thought it was not acceptable.
All that to say that I (by accident) crossed the religious box and got the cute paper. I let you decide if it was OK or not and remember " the one who has never sinned, can throw the first stone..."
And then the visit of the church, the touching of saint James statue (and there a prayer for all the one who had asked for it during the Camino ( and it was surprisingly many), the same thing at the bones. Quiet and nice in the morning...
And the mass for the pilgrim was something everybody was waiting for. I was actually moved. We were lucky that the incense pendulum was produced. We were all waiting for that and I was not disappointed, it was a great sight.
The evening was marked with a goodbye dinner with a few pilgrims in a good restaurant. Tomorrow, we will take a buss to Fisterra and Tore and I will walk to Muxia.
Queue waiting
Km certificate and the church
The pendulum and the hidden pilgrim