Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the administrative, social and commercial capital of the Autonomous Community of Galicia; a city declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO thanks to its multicultural character and for being the goal of an ancient pilgrimage route: the Camino de Santiago, which since the 9th century transformed this finis terrae spot into a meeting point for faith and the thought of the western world.
History
Santiago de Compostela is an apparition of stone nestled between the green forests of the Spanish Northwest and the nearby Galician estuaries. It began as a place of passage next to a Roman road, but the discovery of the tomb of the Apostle Santiago at the beginning of the 9th century gave rise to a place of worship in the confines of a peninsula at the time dominated by the Muslim invasion. Since then, all of Europe began to walk towards Santiago, the holy city of Christianity where the grace of plenary absolution awaited them. There emerged a Romanesque cathedral to which the passing of the centuries wanted to add the sobriety of the Renaissance and the majesty of a Baroque that ended up drawing the monumental image of the city, made of the granite of its monasteries, its pilgrim hospitals, its numerous churches, their stately homes and some squares where chosen time stops.
Tradition
Tradition is still alive and the spirituality of the continent continues to look to Compostela, as the last Holy Years of 1993 and 1999 demonstrated, and as the jubilee appointments of 2010 and 2021 will undoubtedly prove. The city keeps its treasures for visitors, which are exhibited in thirteen museums, and the surprising wealth of its contemporary architecture, signed by Eisenman, Hejduk or Siza, around which extends the most important endowment of parks and gardens in all of Galicia.
Throughout the year, moreover, several million visitors join them. Those who arrive exhausted by devotion; those who come called by the monumental prodigy or those who choose Compostela as the venue for their professional events: they all end up joining the permanent celebration that is life in the city, especially during the Festivities of the Apostle, declared of International Tourist Interest.
