Old Hands, part 17

Mike’s brother Brian came back to Spain for a second visit in May. We had planned a trip to Galicia in the northwest corner of Spain, just above Portugal. My former Spanish teacher, Dolo, was from there, and she had given me her ideas on what a good itinerary would be.

The girls were delighted to have their Uncle Brian along. “It’s always more fun when he’s around,” Julie said with delight. He gave them “bonecrushers,” extra-big hugs, and they had a long-standing routine in which, for reasons long forgotten, he would insist (in a French accent) “You must know!” and they would each respond, “I don’t know!”

We piled into the Mercedes on a Tuesday afternoon—it was another big puente holiday—and drove three and a half hours to León, in the province of Castilla y León. León was part of the ancient pilgrimage route of St. James, which the faithful had walked and ridden for years to get to Santiago de Compostela, where the Apostle James was buried. “Look,” I said to the girls, pointing to people walking alongside the road. “Those people are pilgrims, just like centuries ago!” It had become fashionable, we knew, to walk the route, even if you broke it up into weekend-long chunks, each time returning to the place you’d left off the weekend before.

It was late when we arrived, so we had dinner at the hotel and went to bed. The next morning we looked around León a bit, seeing the cathedral, with acres of beautiful stained glass windows and Gregorian chant playing in the background.

From there we walked to the Basílica de San Isidoro, which we had studied extensively in Everett Rice’s Spanish art history class. It was a very old Romanesque church with beautifully preserved frescoes from the 1100s. “Everett’s shown these slides a million times,” I whispered to Mike, “but it’s nothing like seeing it in person.” The life of Jesus was painted in a charmingly primitive style on the ceiling, along with a famous farmer’s calendar that showed the parishioners of the day what kind of work they should be doing each month. The lively colors made everything look brand new despite its age.

We drove on to Astorga, also on the Route of St. James, where the Museum of the Way displayed many artifacts related to the pilgrimage in a building designed by Barcelona’s Gaudí. Then we headed on into Galicia, noticing as things got considerably greener due to the greater rainfall near the coast. Some of the hillsides were covered with yellow and purple wildflowers. “Mom, I see a palm tree!” Lisa exclaimed. There were vineyards everywhere, and unlike the stumpy vines we’d seen in France and Italy just a month before, these vines were growing and greening up.

We got into Santiago de Compostela and found our hotel, then took the twenty-minute walk to the cathedral. The main doors were closed, but we found a side door open and entered there. Most of the visitors had left for the day, so it was nice and quiet inside. As we had learned from Everett, this cathedral was not spectacular in that it was not a high-reaching Gothic church. It was a darker, less fancy romanesque design, but quite grand for a church of that period.

What I wanted to see most was the Portal de Gloria, the heavily carved entrance Everett had described. There was a famous pillar there where pilgrims had put their hands for centuries. The handprint area was indented and shiny. “When you put your hand in there,” Mike told the girls, “think of all the millions who have done the same over the ages.” We all felt a chill as we touched the smooth stone.

We walked behind and under the altar to see the silver casket that held the remains of St. James. “When I was here last summer with Jon Powell, there were lines around the whole cathedral, so we didn’t even bother to wait,” Mike whispered. But we were able to take our time and view the shiny box in quiet.

We left the cathedral and walked through the nearby plazas and narrow streets, which were filled with lively shops and restaurants. We chose a restaurant, had dinner, and walked back in the dark to see the cathedral lit up.