Oh, I love it here! 💛
I would walk another 40 days and nights to arrive in Santiago again!
The Old City is a maze of streets and squares and ancient cathedrals, with a different celebration happening in each one.
Peregrines arrive throughout the day – alone, in pairs, or in noisy groups – overjoyed, overwhelmed, sometimes just stunned.
We come together (or fall apart) in the Praza do Obradoiro, under the watchful gaze of the statue of the Apostle Santiago, high up on the west wing of the Cathedral.
There is the celebration of finally arriving after so many miles (500!), of being welcomed by friends you thought you will never see again (Dodo!), of presenting your credential and getting your Compostela, of attending mass with a thousand other pilgrims who walked the same road in the same rain and reached the same destination.
It’s the privilege of listening to a Filipino priest’s blessing in English.
It’s the excitement of being one of the lucky ones to see the botafumeiro swing, and knowing deeply how blessed I am ♥️
But around us, and beyond us, and in spite of us, the city still celebrates life with a wonderfully pagan undertow.
Herb gathering and storytelling in Praza de Mazarelos.
A wedding in the Convento San Francisco on midsummers day.
I keep getting lost in the Old City, because I can barely go two blocks without being pulled down a street by new music, or bonfire jumping🔥, or the sound of furious dancing
Daily Braveries 