After having a wonderful breakfast at Albergue Santa Irene, we set off for our last day of hiking. Only 22 km, or 14 miles lay between us and Santiago. We were excited to complete our journey, and to arrive in the square before the massive Cathedral of St. James.
It took us all day to walk the 14 miles to Santiago. We actually walked a little further than that, since we took a detour to find a pilgrim statue that points the way to the Cathedral in Santiago. It's a beautiful statue, and was definitely worth the extra steps.
We made it to the square on which Santiago de Compastella, the Cathedral of the apostle St. James the Greater at around 4 in the afternoon. We came upon a number of other pilgrims who had just arrived, and were gathered in the square. All were celebrating in one way or another; many were laughing, a few were crying, and many more were recording the moment via photos and selfies.
We went to the Pilgrim Office to get our Compastellas, but decided to go back on Saturday morning because the line was so long. Over 2000 pilgrims arrived in Santiago on Friday-- We had plenty of company.
We knew that there was a pilgrim Mass at the Cathedral at 7:30 Friday evening. We checked into our hotel, did our laundry, and showered Jane and Ric wanted to rest for a few minutes, so Jim and I went to see the Cathedral. We noticed that a lot of people were already arriving for Mass, so we got Jane and Ric and went back to the Cathedral to get seats. To our surprise, there was a special mass at 6:00, for which we had arrived in time. This Mass was celebrated by the Archbishop of Santiago, and con-celebrated with a number of other priests. Although it was all in Spanish, Ric translated for us. The Archbishop welcomed all of the pilgrims to Santiago, and included a pilgrim blessing in his remarks. Just before the end of Mass, we were treated to the swinging of the giant botafumeiro. What. Special sight that was!
After the Mass we all went to a monastery turned parador, San Martin, which is right next to the Cathedral in the square. There we ate a wonderful pilgrim's meal.
After dinner we checked out a few of the shops near the square. We then decided to return to our hotel for the night so that we would be able to wake up early Saturday morning and visit the statue of St. James the greater, as well as the tomb before the crowds gathered. We would then plan to go to the pilgrim office to get out Compastellas. Jim was excited to finally show me Santiago, and the rest of us were excited that we walked 100 miles in 6 days!