Village
Santiago de Compostela has been the capital of Galicia since 1981 and is the destination of the Ways of Saint James, with about 100,000 inhabitants, and one of the three great pilgrimage centres of Christianity together with Jerusalem and Rome, since tradition places the tomb of the apostle James the Greater here. Its historic quarter, a World Heritage Site since 1985, is arranged around the cathedral built over that tomb. The name Compostela has been explained as deriving from the Latin campus stellae, “field of the star”, by which, according to legend, it guided Bishop Theodemar here. It has a university more than five hundred years old, among the ten best in Spain, with about 25,500 students on its Santiago and Lugo campuses, and the busiest airport in Galicia, the second in northern Spain after Bilbao.
Monument
Begun in 1075 under King Alfonso VI and Bishop Diego Peláez and consecrated in April 1211 before King Alfonso IX of León and his son, it holds the tomb of the Apostle beneath the high altar, discovered, according to tradition, in the year 813. It measures about 100 metres long and 22 metres high in the central nave, with 70 metres in width and 32 metres in height at the transept; the last stone was laid in 1122. Its Pórtico de la Gloria, the work of Master Mateo between 1168 and 1188, iconographically depicts the Apocalypse of Saint John, while the Baroque façade of the Obradoiro, by Fernando de Casas Novoa (1740), has become the symbol of the city.
Monument
The Pórtico de la Gloria is the sculptural ensemble that Master Mateo and his workshop carved in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, commissioned by King Ferdinand II of León, who financed the work with one hundred maravedís a year between 1168 and 1188. Its lintels were placed on 1 April 1188 and the temple was consecrated in 1211 in the presence of Alfonso IX. Three arches presided over by the Pantocrator, surrounded by the evangelists and the elders of the Apocalypse, close off this hinge-point ensemble between the Romanesque and the Gothic. It was once polychrome, though today only traces of colour remain, and some of its original figures were removed when the Baroque façade of the Obradoiro was raised in the 18th century, leaving it boxed in behind it; they are preserved in the Cathedral Museum.
Monument
An esplanade of about 6,000 square metres, the most emblematic square in Santiago de Compostela, enclosed by four buildings that sum up the life of the city: the cathedral, with the façade of the Obradoiro and its museum, and beside it the Pazo de Xelmírez, to the east; the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, the former Hospital Real, to the north; the Colexio de San Xerome, today the university's rectorate, to the south; and the Pazo de Raxoi, seat of the town council, to the west. The great pillars of life in Compostela are thus represented: religion, the university, care for the pilgrim, and administration. Its name may derive from the obradoiros, the workshops of the stonemasons who worked on the cathedral's Baroque façade, the fruit of more than seven hundred years of construction and a remarkable wealth of architectural styles.
Monument
The former Royal Hospital that the Catholic Monarchs ordered built after their visit of 1486; the architect Enrique Egas directed the work between 1501 and 1511, it has four courtyards laid out in a Greek cross, and since 1953 it has operated as a parador.
Monument
A Benedictine cenoby of 22,000 square metres, founded in the 10th century and become the richest and most powerful in Galicia by the end of the 15th, when it directed all of Galicia's male Benedictine monasteries. Its church, the work of Mateo López, was begun around 1590 and finished between 1645 and 1652; the monumental main façade was designed by Gabriel de las Casas, begun by the master builder González Araujo and completed in 1738 by Fernando de Casas y Novoa. The high altarpiece was carved by Miguel de Romay and Casas Novoa himself between 1730 and 1733. Above the door stand out an image of Saint Benedict, the coat of arms of Spain, and Saint Martin on horseback sharing his cloak with a poor man. Following the disentailment of 1835, it has housed, since 1868, the senior seminary of the archdiocese of Santiago.
Monument
A Romanesque church on the banks of the río Sar, in Santiago de Compostela, conceived as a retreat house for Augustinian regular canons, Galicia's first Augustinian community. It was founded by Bishop Munio Alfonso, a former collaborator of Diego Gelmírez, after he resigned the see of Mondoñedo in 1134; on his death, before the work was finished, Gelmírez himself took charge of completing it, and the founding charter survives, dated 1 September 1136, confirmed by Alfonso VII in 1137. It is famous for the pronounced lean of its walls and pillars, shored up with Baroque buttresses added centuries later. It was declared a Monumento Nacional, today a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), in 1895, and has featured since 2015 in the Unesco-recognised inventory of the Camino de Santiago.
Monument
The cradle of the Universidade de Santiago, founded by Archbishop Alonso III de Fonseca by a bull of 1526 on the site of his birthplace in rúa do Franco; Juan de Álava designed the Plateresque courtyard of double arcading that today surrounds the Biblioteca Xeral.
Monument
The Pazo de Raxoi, today the seat of the Santiago de Compostela town council, closes off the plaza del Obradoiro on the west side, facing the cathedral's main façade, between the Colegio de San Jerónimo and the Hospital Real de los Reyes Católicos. It takes its name from Archbishop Bartolomé de Raxoi, the chief driving force behind its construction after a dispute between the Concello, the Archbishopric and the Hospital Real over the site, resolved in 1767 in favour of a single building to house the town council, a seminary and the city's prisons. It was built between 1766 and 1772 to the designs of the French engineer Carlos Lemaur. In French neoclassical style and almost 90 metres long, it follows the palatial model of François Mansart, with a long porticoed loggia of rusticated ashlar.
Monument
The Cidade da Cultura de Galicia is an architectural complex by the American Peter Eisenman, winner of the 1999 international competition, which ripples across the summit of Monte Gaiás, in Santiago de Compostela, like a carved rock. It brings together buildings devoted to culture, such as the Library and Archive of Galicia and the Museo Centro Gaiás, alongside others geared towards technology and entrepreneurship. Budgeted at 108 million euros, the completed work ended up costing around 300 million; finished according to the original plan, it would have run to around 500 million. Construction was halted at the end of March 2013, leaving the Teatro de la Ópera unbuilt; in 2018 the Xunta announced that the Edificio Fontán would be built on its site, with services shared by Galicia's three universities.
Activity
Public market located in the historic centre of Santiago de Compostela, between the churches of Santo Agustín and San Fiz de Solovio, and the only one in the city. The current building, with eight naves, was conceived after the storm that brought down the old Mercado de la Ciudad in 1935, which had been built between 1870 and 1874; construction of the building preserved today began in 1938 and finished in 1945, to a design by the architect Joaquín Vaquero Palacios, who sought to integrate the village and the countryside within the city. It remains the only produce market in Santiago and a direct sales point for local countrywomen, with fresh seasonal produce such as cheese, cured meats, fish, seafood, vegetables and meat.
Monument
The convent of San Domingos de Bonaval, located outside the walls on the slope of Mount Almáciga, near the Porta do Camiño, is documented from 1228 under its original dedication to Santa María, and from the 15th century under the name San Domingos, under the patronage of the House of Altamira; it was declared a monument in 1912. After the disestablishment of the religious orders it passed into the hands of the Concello, which used it first as a poorhouse, from 1841, and later as a school for the deaf-mute and the blind; in 1977 the building was handed over to create the Museo do Pobo Galego. Its church, in Gothic and Renaissance styles, has since housed the Panteón de Galegos Ilustres, where Rosalía de Castro, Castelao and Alfredo Brañas, among others, lie, and it preserves a high altarpiece built from 1687 by Domingo de Andrade.
Monument
A terraced square laid out around 1611 by the master builder Francisco Fernández de Araújo over the old cathedral cemetery; a flight of steps separates the Quintana de Mortos, below, from the Quintana de Vivos, presided over by the Casa da Parra. The works, commissioned by the cathedral's canon-fabricero José Vega y Verdugo, were also used to close off the eastern façade of the church with a continuous wall covering the apse and the apse chapels. The square is also formed by the convent of San Paio de Antealtares and the casa da Conga, and today it is the usual setting for protest rallies and large popular concerts. On the corbels of the Casa da Parra there is a webcam that refreshes its image every two seconds, and a plaque commemorates the Batallón Literario of the War of Independence.
Monument
A convent of enclosed Benedictine nuns in the old town of Santiago de Compostela, facing the head of the cathedral and closing off the Quintana square. Founded around the year 830 by Alfonso II the Chaste so that monks would tend the cult of the apostle's relics, it was built to the east of the Roman mausoleum where the remains were found, facing its entrance door, whence the name Antealtares. In 1495 its premises, except the church, were handed over to found a college for poor students, the seed of the University of Santiago; in 1499 the enclosed community that remains there today moved in. The present church, in the shape of a Greek cross, was built between 1699 and 1707, with a high altarpiece of 1714 by Francisco Castro Canseco. It houses a museum of sacred art opened in 1873.
Nature
The most notable urban park in Santiago de Compostela, the historic lung of the city with just over 56,000 square metres, born of a donation of land by Rodrigo de Moscoso in 1546 and laid out in 1835. It lies between the old town and the present-day Campus Sur, and is divided into three areas: the Paseo da Alameda proper, the carballeira de Santa Susana - more than three hundred centuries-old oaks around a chapel that Archbishop Gelmírez had built in the 12th century - and the Paseo da Ferradura or dos Leóns, which Otero Pedrayo called Spain's noblest promenade. Among its buildings, the church of El Pilar and the Recreo Artístico e Industrial pavilion stand out, the only surviving remnant of the 1909 Exposición Regional Gallega, alongside oaks, eucalyptus trees and horse chestnuts.
Nature
The carballeira de Santa Susana is a hill in Santiago de Compostela that forms part of the Alameda park, next to the Paseo de la Alameda and the Paseo de la Ferradura, which borders it entirely; in earlier times it was known as the outeiro de Poldros, and a castro once stood there. In the 12th century Archbishop Xelmírez had a church built to house the relics of Santa Susana de Braga, a temple remodelled in the 17th and 18th centuries and today surrounded by more than three hundred centuries-old oaks forming this oak grove. In its forecourt, in Xelmírez's time, the representatives of the townspeople met every Friday, an assembly that gave rise to the concejo of Santiago.
Nature
The Parque de San Domingos de Bonaval occupies a hill to the northeast of Santiago's historic centre, next to the Convento de San Domingos - with the Museo do Pobo Galego and the Panteón de Gallegos Ilustres - and the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. It was opened on 24 July 1994 with the rehabilitation of the former Dominican vegetable garden and cemetery, in a project by the architect Álvaro Siza and the landscape architect Isabel Aguirre, awarded a prize in 1997. The design respects the old tripartite structure of the monastic property - vegetable garden, oak grove and cemetery - over 37,047 square metres divided into levels by schist walls. In the lower area, that of the former vegetable garden, stands Eduardo Chillida's sculpture A Porta da Música, which frames the towers of the cathedral.
Nature
A planting of some twelve thousand native trees - oaks, chestnuts, birches, alders and bay laurels - over 34 hectares on the slope of Monte Gaiás, crossed by five kilometres of footpaths.
Nature
Mount Pedroso rises 461 metres above the parish of Figueiras, three kilometres from the old town of Santiago de Compostela, on the right bank of the river Sarela, where a bridge of medieval origin is preserved. Near the summit, crowned by a communications tower, petroglyphs are preserved that attest to a human presence since remote times. From its viewpoints the city and neighbouring mountains can be seen, and several hiking trails cross it, with areas set aside for picnics. The surroundings have been protected from development for decades so that no building competes in height or visibility with the cathedral; its woods suffered the great fires of the summer of 2006.
Nature
Monte do Gozo is a hill 370 metres high in the municipality of Santiago de Compostela, known as the place from which pilgrims on the Way of St James first catch sight of the cathedral's towers, hence its name. In the Middle Ages, Archbishop Diego Xelmírez had a chapel built there, in 1105, where pilgrims knelt in thanksgiving; it was abandoned in the 17th century. Located on the French Way itself, 4.5 km from the centre, it is the last hill and, in many cases, the last stop before reaching the cathedral. In 1989 it was developed with large facilities to host the visit of John Paul II for World Youth Day.
Curiosity
The botafumeiro, forged in 1851 by the Compostela silversmith Xosé Losada, is one of the most popular symbols of the cathedral of Santiago. Empty it weighs 62 kilos, a weight it reached in 2006 when a silver plating was added during a restoration led by Luis Molina Acedo. It is filled with about 400 grams of charcoal and incense and hangs from a 65-metre synthetic rope which, by means of a system of pulleys, allows eight men called tiraboleiros to swing it across the transept of the cathedral, from the Azabachería door to the Platerías door, reaching a height of 21 metres and a speed of 68 km/h after seventeen complete passes. The rope has come loose on three documented occasions, in 1499, 1622 and 1937, without causing casualties.
Curiosity
The Door of Forgiveness, opening onto the praza da Quintana, which is passed through only in a Holy Xacobeo Year, when 25 July falls on a Sunday; the cycle repeats every 6, 5, 6 and 11 years, and after 2021 the next will be 2027.
Curiosity
A traditional cake of Galician cuisine, today with protected geographical indication, made with almonds and sugar in equal parts mixed with egg, with no flour except in the shortcrust pastry that covers it underneath, and with a touch of cinnamon and grated lemon zest. It is baked at 180-200 degrees for about 45 minutes, until the surface hardens, and should come out golden in colour with a slightly spongy texture. The first mention of this almond cake dates from 1577, when it is documented as a torta real; the silhouette of the cross of St James dusted in sugar was introduced in 1924 by the Compostela confectionery Casa Mora, and on 3 March 2006 it obtained the Protected Geographical Indication.
Curiosity
A polychrome sculpture that the sculptor César Lombera installed on the Alameda of Santiago in 1994, after nine years of pressing the concello, in tribute to the sisters Maruxa (Santiago, 1898-1980) and Coralia Fandiño Ricart (Santiago, 1914-A Coruña, 1983), known as As Marías or As dúas Marías. Between the 1950s and the late 1970s, the two sisters walked daily through the old part of the city, dressed and made up in an outlandish fashion, always at two o'clock in the afternoon, whence also comes their nickname As dúas en punto. Those walks, in contrast with the grey atmosphere imposed by Francoism, became quite the popular event in the city.
Curiosity
A tour de force by Domingo de Andrade in the convent of San Domingos: three independent helices, with single-piece steps held by an outer rib, that climb without ever crossing, and of which only one reaches the viewing gallery.
Curiosity
A building on the Plaza de las Platerías, in Santiago de Compostela, designed by the Galician baroque architect Clemente Fernández Sarela and dated to 1758; with little more than three metres of depth, it has a purely scenographic function, that of closing off one side of the square as a backdrop facing the Platerías fountain, for which it is regarded as the greatest urban extravagance of Compostela baroque. It was initially the seat of the Cabido Catedralicio and since the mid-19th century has been privately owned. It inspired Valle-Inclán's story Mi hermana Antonia, and in 2005 the film O lapis do carpinteiro was shot there.
Activity
The French Way is the most heavily travelled Jacobean route in Spain, the trunk route into which pilgrims arriving by other paths flow along its course, and it forms part of the GR-65 Long-Distance Trail and the E-3 European Path. In its broadest sense it begins on French soil, beyond the Roncesvalles pass, at the confluence of the three Jacobean routes coming from Tours, Vézelay and Le Puy-en-Velay, and crosses Navarre, La Rioja, Castile and Galicia before entering Santiago de Compostela via the Monte do Gozo and the Porta do Camiño to end in the Plaza del Obradoiro. Declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1993, it is also a European Cultural Route.
Activity
A celebration declared of Interés Turístico Internacional (the official category granted to Spain's most outstanding festivals), taking place in the last ten days of July; its main night is that of the 24th, with the fogos do Apóstolo and a monumental light projection onto the façade of the Obradoiro. The festivities centre on 25 July, the feast of St James the Great and Galicia's National Day, and combine religious acts with the fireworks launched from the cathedral the night before.
Curiosity
A triple spiral staircase designed by Domingo de Andrade in the convent of Bonaval: three independent flights coil in the same well and come out on different floors without ever crossing.
Historical milestone
The expedition of the Cordoban warlord Almanzor razed Santiago de Compostela in 997 and carried off to Córdoba the bells and doors of the basilica, though it spared the Apostle's tomb; the church was rebuilt in the following years.