Tuesday was hands down my favorite port so far. We docked into Vigo, Spain; but I was a tour escort of the neighboring city, Santiago de Compostela. And this city sealed the deal for me, I’m moving here.
My tour guide was Margarina, no relations to the butter she said ;) She was awesome, full of legends and historical events. We boarded a bus and hit the road, because our city was a little over an hour away. I helped hand out headphones and little radios that looked like iPods, so that the guests could listen to Margarina on her microphone. She gave some information about Vigo as we drove out of the city and into the country, then let us take a nice “siesta” (nap) the rest of the way. This was of course, perfect for me because cars affect me right away and I pass out.
Once there, we walked into the square, stopping to taste the samples of delicious cookies ladies were handing out beside their sweet shops. MM….YUMMY!!!! In the square, we saw a beautiful cathedral surrounded by two government buildings and a popular hotel. The church is rich in significance, from the detail in statues to the number of steps (33 for the years in Jesus’ life).
Our next stop was the university. She talked about the weird hours for the library, 7:30 am til 1:30 am. It’s common in Spain to have lunch around 2 followed by a siesta, and since everyone goes home for long dinners, they leave the library open for the students to return late to study. The area had many bars and discos, since it is a college town. I first heard the Brazilian cast refer to clubs as discos and it tickled me. I thought we were out of that era, but apparently not ;)
We made stops at two other squares; one with a statue of horses, and the other the Square of The Dead since there was a cemetery. Margarina took us into an alleyway with a window display of a large, silver incense burner. This was a replica of the original gold burner that was stolen from the city by Napoleon Bonaparte! I saw various food displayed in the restaurants, including entire octopus for sale! She told us that the typical cheese here is shaped like a woman’s breast. A long time ago, a priest reviewing the churches in the town told the sculptor he thought one female saint’s breasts were too big. Well, he was offended and since the ancient people of the town like to play jokes on each other, they shaped their cheese into breasts. The prank lives on to this day.
We took a tour of the Cathedral of Apostles and followed it with a stop at the Monastery. We were told there is a major crisis now because there are too many churches and not enough priests. In fact, present day, each priest has five to six churches he has to serve mass to every Sunday. Margarina spilled a little secret about one priest that was pulled over for the amount of alcohol in his body while driving. He tried to explain he had to get to his other churches to serve and has to consume the holy wine at each, but in the end he had to pay the fine.
Our final stop was the Cathedral of St. James. This church actually holds the bones of Saint James, friend of Jesus! We learned that after the burial site was found, a cathedral was built but it was too small because thousands of people flooded in to pay tribute to the Saint. So another one was erected. However, this church was destroyed when a Muslim leader burnt it down. We were standing at the bottom of the third, and hopefully final, church of St. James.
Inside the cathedral, we saw the Door of Glory that was sculpted out of stone and marble to illustrate Jesus in glory and Saint James welcoming the pilgrims. It was under construction, but she pointed out one of the pillars where the artist had made a stone portrait of himself. Students believed that they could gain the architects’ wisdom if they hit their heads four times against the stone forehead. This, among many other interesting rituals of the church, is no longer permitted.
I’m not sure what I would come to study, but I was so in love with this area. It was so quaint and peaceful, every alleyway had it’s own unique sound and smell, and I could picture myself dining in one of the coffee shops after class. Someday, I will return. I LOVE EUROPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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