Sept 29 Santiago

And so we find each other! I am looking for Jette and Sonja all through the wonderful Pilrgims Mass in the morning at the church and when I go out to walk along with the rest of the people leaving the church, there sits Sonja on the stone wall, as if she were waiting for me. It is a warm and wonderful welcome and reunion of friends. The mass was just as important as the first time that I sat in the church after the Camino Frances was completed in 2008. This time I chose a seat in the cross of the church and so had a much better view of the mass itself and when they prepared to swing the botefumeiro, it was a spectacle worth waiting for. It goes so high up and then comes barrelling down such that you actually duck, thinking that it will surely hit you on the head. It doesn´t, but what a feeling being there in that space once again.
Sonja and I go for lunch and have a wonderful talk and a walk and then agree to meet later for a drink and hopefully find the rest of our friends. This is accomplished with Chris, the American fellow we have met many times, the Korean couple and then along comes Jette. We have a wonderful time with a drink and then a dinner together with a lot of other people that we know from our travels. So much laughter!
I am feeling ready to leave here, but will stay for one more day to tour around and see what I have missed on other occasions.
Jette and I spend a wonderful day touring around the museums which I had not noticed before. There is a lot to see in the underground of the church with the architecture and then some access to the cloister up above the main church. We are impressed with the things we get to observe and then make a reservation to tour the roof of the cathedral later in the day. This turns out to be the most impressive of all of our explorations. We are taken through the palace which dates back to the 13th century and then high up to the balcony that runs around the sanctuary of the church. This is a place where the pilgrims of the past were allowed to sleep once they arrived in Santiago.
The stairs that led to the roof are old and worn and we are soon on the very top of the cathedral roof. We are able to walk all over the area as the roof is made of cement plates that form slanted steps on the roof top. We walk around the various bell towers and over the main sanctuary and then over the dome that covers the tomb of St James. We are able to look over balcony railings to the streets below and then to listen to the bells as they chime the hour and the call to mass. We are told many stories of the past and see the Cross of Rags which is beside a cement basin in which the pilgrims uses to burn their clothes. This was moved to the roof of the catherdral many centuries ago.
After this wonderful tour, we go down to the square for a great dinner and then we remember on our way home that the church across from the cathedral holds a vespers service in the evening and we are in luck. As we enter, the nuns have just begun to sing their mass for the evening prayers and so we sit and listen to the music and the atmosphere is very special.
It is a great way to complete our visit to Santiago with all of the things that we have seen and learned about this place.
Maggee