EL CAMINO DE SANTIAGO


Fiestas - Festivals
The city 		El Camino de Santiago - The Way of St. James
The Way of St. James 		Monumentos
Monuments 		Fotografias
Images 		Etapas en bicicleta

St. James, apostle of Christ, also known as Boanerges (Son of Thunder), came to Spain to spread the gospel, and it is said that during his stay there, the Virgin appeared to him on the banks of the River Ebro.
 

He later returned to Palestine where he was decapitated by Herodes Agripa in 42 AD, becoming the first apostle to be martyred because of his beliefs.
 

His disciples put his body in a boat and sailed to Galicia, burying him on the site where the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was later built, which would later become a place of worship and pilgrimage for Christianity.
 

In 859, during the Moorish occupation of Spain, a small Christian army prayed to the Saint before going into battle and defeated a large Arab army composed of thousands of soldiers. From that point onwards, the Apostle St. James became the protector of Christian forces against the Arabs during the Reconquest.
Reunification after the struggle against Islam led to the formation of the Kingdom of Spain, with the Apostle St. James being adopted as the patron saint.
   

Later, the network of routes to the basilica of the apostle began to extend all over Europe, from Scandinavia in the north and the Slavic countries of the east. Saints, kings, knights, burghers, artisans and peasants travelled to Compostela, with or without an entourage, on foot or on horseback. Paths of piety and culture, the various routes which made up the Ways of St. James played a decisive role in the formation of a pan-European spirit through the exchange of different ways of life, thought, languages and crafts.
   

In 1987, the Council of Europe declared the Way of St. James the First European Cultural Route, and later recognised it as a World Heritage site.


The Way of St. James: ‘the French Way’.

In the twelfth century, a travelling French monk by the name of Aymerico Picaud, related the story of his pilgrimage to Santiago, thus marking the beginnings of what has become known as ‘the French Way’, the traditional St. James route, the best-known and most-travelled of all.

It enters Spain at Roncesvalles, passing through Navarra, La Rioja, Castille and Leon, and, still following the stars, enters Galicia at the sierras of the Ancares and the ‘Green Cathedral’ of the Caurel, taking the pilgrims right to the end of the known world, where the land died in the sea or where, according to the Celts, the last star in the Milky Way shone, also known as the Rainbow Way.