Santiago de Compostela

The flight out of Dublin went without hitch. We said goodbye to the kids who our now off on their European adventure. It was brilliant spending the week with them, the circumstances were ideal. We all got a taste of our weird, wild roots; the music, the Guiness, the never ending wedding (4pm till dawn bar service and the guests don't have to leave) and the spectacular natural beauty. Life long memories.

With Annie and David joining us we picked up our car in Santiago airport and Dave took first driving duty. He did superbly negotiating the car park, then drive into the city. Our hotel is a pousada, a hotel incorporated into an historic building, this one being a Jesuit monastery from the seventeenth century. A really gorgeous place. 

Our first afternoon was spent exploring the alley ways surrounding the magnificent cathedral as the town slowly came to life.

 This town is the final destination for the thousands of pilgrims who walk The Camino, the ancient pilgrimage to the resting place of the bones of St James. The legend is that a shepherd followed a constellation of stars to this town, guiding him to the place where James bones lie, prompting him to insist they build a cathedral. Voila. Then someone came up with the idea of walking 500 miles to get here, stopping at villages along the way and Spanish tourism was born. But what a magic place it is.

Delicious Tapas arrives gratis with every drink in the bars, which are dirt cheap, the plazas and streets are full of interesting eateries and the architecture is majestic. Our first meal Michele claims as the best she has had so far, I had a bad case of food envy. Her veal chop looked like a dinosaur rib. And the bill was very tiny.

Sunday morning up with the lark after a good brekky and a whip around the cake shops, we went down to the cathedral for the pilgrim mass. 

Now, the story is that Annie knew all about the Botafumeiro incense burner, but was a little bit cagey and did not make a fuss. 

The cathedral was packed to the rafters but, being in the know about the botafumairo incense burner, she found a position near the transept of the cathedral. The mass was co celebrated by about twenty priests so I felt something was brewing. As well as this the security man was ushering people away from a complicated rope and pulley device that held a huge thurible dangling aloft in front of the altar. 

The aforementioned Botafumeiro incense burner. After communion everything literally swung into action.

Oh my Lord, unbelievable. It weighs .....and swings in an sixty metre arc on twenty five metres of rope, across the front of the altar and reaches an angle of almost ninety degrees. The little old men in velvet maroon jump suits, the tiraboleiros, race out stage left like The Flying Cadenzas, do their bit then disappear. We were told not to use phones or cameras....are they kidding? Take note of the priest in the film clip (far left). [VIDEO TO COME - SILLY HOTEL WIFI WON'T LET ME UPLOAD VIDEO]

In the meantime, here is a clip from YouTube in case you have NO idea of what I am talking about...

The Botafumeiro incense burner doesn't swing every week, after all. The reason this thurible is such a monster is that after their pilgrimage, the smelly faithful would herd into the church accompanied by their livestock and the pong required some heavy duty purifying. Serious!

We spent a glorious day on a high. We could not stop talking about the botafumairo moment. Insane.

I couldn't get over this fantastic town. The wasted pilgrims feel like they have reached heaven when they get here. Every one of them we spoke to said the same thing. Santiago Di Compostela has been a huge highlight of the tour.