Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Santiago is world famous for its magificent cathedral and the thousands of pilgrims that it attracts throughout the year, but what is the town really like?

In fact the section of the town that is most famous is actually quite small. It’s very easy to walk right around the famous section in under an hour if you don’t dawdle and in fact almost all of the tourists and pilgrims (it’s often difficult to distinguish between them) see a very small portion of the town which is consequently incredibly crowded. Even in the evening you can find it difficult to get a table in a restaurant, despite the large number of them in this area.

However, it doesn’t take much of a walk to get outside the touristy parts of the town. Almost everyone appears to cross the road from the park and walk along the Rua Franco to the cathedral which makes this, of course, one of the most crowded streets in the town. But, if instead of going straight towards the cathedral, you turn right within a few hundred yards you’ll find yourself in the modern section of the town which is full of “normal” shops and almost completely devoid of tourists. You almost get the impression that the inhabitants of the town like it that way as you’re immediately into a very Gallician area with signs in the local language rather than Spanish.

Whereas the tourist sections are lively at night with street theatre, in the modern town you don’t get any of that and the streets are almost deserted when it gets dark. If you’re looking for nightlife it seems to be best to stick to the areas around the cathedral as we found that most things seemed to close down around 10pm in the new town with just a few things such as some restaurants and cinemas staying open a little later than that. If you want to watch a film, bear in mind that in the new town all the films are in Spanish and there are no subtitles.

If you’re looking for a quiet stroll in the evening, try some of the numerous parks in the new town. In many cases, you’ll find that you have the places pretty much to yourself which makes a welcome change from pushing through the crowded streets in the cathedral area. There aren’t nearly as many restaurants in this area but it’s very easy to get a table and, of course, you get much more authentic Gallician food than you’ll find in the restaurants in the tourist area.

You may have seen news of the extensive fires in the Gallician countryside over the last couple of weeks.

Naturally, in the summer fire breaks out in numerous areas of Spain but a considerable number of these were set deliberately. I was staying at the University of Santiago and the fires came within about 1km of the university campus which is rather too close for comfort. Think of the heat and smoke coming from a log fire in your home and magnify that 1000 fold and you’ll get some idea of the problems that this causes. Surprisingly though, some homes on the hill opposite the university seemed to be virtually intact despite having been surrounded by the intense forest fires. I wonder though if they were quite so unscathed as they appeared to be when seen from a distance?

The fires were largely spent by the time I arrived but by that time the population had begun to hold a series of protest rallies. Interestingly for me was that they felt very much like the protest rallies that you see now and again in Northern Ireland so I guess this is another sign of the celtic heritage of the region. Even the slogans were quite similar with “Ulster says No” translating to “Nunca Mais” (Never Again) and, of course, the use of bagpipes. All that was absent was the police in riot gear!

Arnold

The rolling green fields that you see as the plane comes in to land are the first indication that this isn’t the Spain of the costas.

The coastline is quite different from that of the southern costas. Whereas Marbella is nothing like the small port that it grew out of, the port of A Coruna is still very much the centre of activities of the town. Yes, developments have more or less swamped the small old town but they are developments for a thriving town and not the wall to wall hotels and apartments of one of the costa ports.

Towns like Santiago do get their fair share of tourists but even there the tourists are confined to quite small sections of the town. Move outside those and you’ll find a real town.

So, no, this isn’t the tourist Spain that you probably already know. It’s an altogether different place.

It’s different in other respects too. For one thing, this is one of the areas of Spain that was never conquered by the Arabs so along with the other northern coastal provinces is one of those that has always been Spain.

The impact of that is most evident in the culture of the area. It has a very celtic undertone to it all with bagpipes (albeit without tartan designs) being almost as commonplace as they are in Edinburgh. In fact, in many respects Santiago feels like a smaller and warmer version of Edinburgh. Strangely though, the local language (Gallego/Gallician) isn’t a celtic based one.

Would you like to go there though? If you’re just aiming to lay on the beach and get a tan, probably not as all that green scenery is indicative of a good deal of rainfall. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a part of Spain with more culture than you’ll find in Marbella and less people than you find in Seville then it’s a good choice.

If I’ve convinced you then there are a growing number of transport options available to you with flights to Santiago and A Coruna in Galicia and others further east in Asturias plus the port of Santander just a few hours drive further on. These are all bookable via the links at the right. There aren’t massive quantities of tourist accommodation but you’ll find sufficient if you book ahead.

Arnold

Is the Camino de Santiago a real pilgrimage these days? I had the chance to visit the city numerous times over the course of last week and the area in and around the cathedral was constantly thronged with people and even more so on Sunday.

Does that mean that they are real’ pilgrims though? Well, I suspect that the majority are, at least in part, for when we went outside the central part of the old town we found virtually no tourists at all. In fact in the new town I don’t think that there were any. That in itself is quite unusual as you would normally see some tourist overspill’ into the non-touristy sections of any town.

In tourist terms, there seems to be next to nothing touristy’ about the place on the whole. Yes, it certainly has the ancient building around the centre, but it doesn’t have the tourist shops in anything like the numbers that you’d expect given the number of visitors which implies that a fair number are pilgrims rather than tourists. It certainly does have loads of restaurants but even pilgrims have to eat so that’s not something that says tourist’. And at night, it is very lively with street theatre all around the central section and spilling out into the park but, again, even pilgrims do things at night.

However, I wouldn’t say that all of the pilgrims are quite in the mould of pilgrims of old. The pilgrim who looked haggard from his/her walk along the camino was very rare and most arrived in pretty good shape with modern day backpacks in place of the cloth bag or whatever passed for the equivalent in days of old. Considerable numbers come on bicycles too as evidenced by the number of bikes being packed in the airport. Actually the airport is something of an indication of pilgrimage activity with a massive list of destinations for such a small airport.

One rather major thing that makes life as a pilgrim somewhat easier these days is that you now only have to walk 100km to get your Compostela (200km on a bicycle) which seems like nothing in comparison to those who walked goodness knows how many miles down France and across Spain to get it not so long ago. Let’s face it: 100km is nothing. Even I would consider doing that!

Overall, I’d say that there is, if not a majority, then a sizeable minority of proper’ pilgrims. It’s just that these days, the route isn’t nearly so hard going as it was in olden days. Things have changed considerably when you see credit card’ listed as one of the essential items to take on your pilgrimage.

Arnold

I spent last week on an intensive Spanish course in the University of Santiago so this weeks entry is all about that.

Santiago is quite a small town and I managed to walk round pretty much all of it on the Saturday just prior to starting the course. Inside the surroundings of the old town it’s pretty much packed with tourists everywhere but when I ventured out into the new town surrounding it on Wednesday afternoon I found that it was just as nice with a number of nice parks but virtually no tourists. It was much more pleasant because of that as the tourists tend to congregate along a very limited number of routes through the town.

If you want to see a service in the cathedral, go very early on Sunday as the pilgrims and tourists are at their maximum then.

If you want to watch a film whilst you’re there, bear in mind that they will be in Spanish only (ie no subtitles) so you’ll need quite good Spanish to follow them.

The town remains quite lively at night too. The new town quietens down around 10pm but the old town remains lively well after midnight with numerous bars and cafes open until very late (or early!). Around the cathedral area you’ll find numerous lively groups of musicians playing well into the night with one particularly entertaining act under the arches in the building directly opposite the cathedral. If you’re in a rush, be wary of the elderly troubadours with their engaging, if overlly long, patter selling CDs of love songs along the streets leading out of the cathedral square. In the park on the way back to the university we even found quite an elaborate and engaging puppeteer act.

On Tuesday we were off to A Coruna which is on the coast. Quite a different town than Santiago obviously but still with a small old town where you can see a number of churches. It’s still quite a major port and a much larger town than Santiago although you can still manage to walk around the main tourist sights in an afternoon (ie the port area, old town and Hercules Tower).

But, what about the course? Well, it consisted of around three or four hours per day of classes plus a number of workshops on aspects of the Spanish language and Spanish culture. That might not sound like a lot but it’s hard to keep going in a foreign language for as long as that and everyone was quite tired at the end of the days (running from 9am to 10pm Sunday to Thursday). As it was largely a series of conversation classes, the progressive improvement in Spanish ability wasn’t so obvious as it is in normal classes but I’m confident that I speak Spanish a lot better now and was able to try that out this morning with some Spanish guests that we have. Not sure if I’d say I’m fluent at the moment but I’m further on the way than I was a week ago.

Arnold