Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the end of the Way of St James, and for more than a thousand years pilgrims have walked across Europe to reach the tomb believed to hold the apostle James the Great. Tradition says the grave was rediscovered around 814, when a hermit saw lights over a forest; a chapel and then larger churches followed. In 997 the Córdoban commander al-Mansur burned the church but left the tomb alone. The present Romanesque cathedral was begun in 1075, largely in granite, on a plan similar to Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, and was consecrated in 1211. Later centuries wrapped it in Gothic and above all Baroque additions.

Most people first see the cathedral from the vast Praza do Obradoiro, named after the stonemasons' workshop that stood there. The Baroque west front, finished in 1740 by Fernando de Casas Novoa, rises between two bell towers of about 75–80 m, with large glass windows. It is the image on Spain's 1, 2 and 5 cent coins. Behind it lies the building's great treasure: the Pórtico da Gloria, the triple Romanesque doorway carved by Master Mateo and finished in 1188, crowded with apostles, prophets and scenes of the Last Judgement. On the south side, the Pratarías façade, begun in 1103, is the only original Romanesque façade to survive. On the east side, the Holy Door onto Praza da Quintana opens only in Holy Years, when St James's Day, 25 July, falls on a Sunday.

Inside, the barrel-vaulted nave and the wide transept are pure pilgrimage-church Romanesque, with galleries running high above the aisles. The mood changes at the main altar, under an enormous Baroque canopy with a 13th-century statue of the saint. Pilgrims pass along a narrow passage behind it to kiss the saint's mantle, then go down into the crypt, where a silver casket of 1886 holds the relics. These had been hidden in 1589 against English and Dutch raids, lost, and found again in 1879.

The cathedral's most famous sight is the Botafumeiro, a silver-plated censer 1.6 m tall and weighing 80 kg, made in 1851. On major feast days, and at pilgrims' Masses in Holy Years, a team of eight men in red robes hauls on a rope to swing it across the transept almost to the vault, at up to 80 km/h, trailing clouds of incense. At other times it is displayed in the cathedral library.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in the heart of Santiago de Compostela's old town, a World Heritage Site in its own right, and is best reached on foot. Santiago Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ) is about 11 km east of the city. The 6A bus runs every 30 minutes and reaches the railway and bus stations in about half an hour; a taxi takes about 15 minutes.