Up on the Roof!!

The days I spent in Santiago were desperately needed.  They were very special in their own way.  Talking with other pilgrims in Santiago, I found I wasn't alone in that feeling.   To grab a flight straight home seemed simply unimaginable, and in a way wrong.  Even now, months later, I'm really just starting to feel like my feet are on the ground here at home.  As much as they ever may be again!  But then...they weren't exactly on the ground all the time I was Santiago either!

The last time I'd been in Santiago, in '08, I hadn't even known there was a roof top tour.    The tour is currently running at 8 Euros, and is worth every bit of it.  I had the good fortune to get to share my experience with Hunter a terrific young man, a great pilgrim, from Florida.  We'd met on the trail a while back and bumped into each other again, as pilgrims do, in Santiago.  We both enjoy church architecture and art, so sharing it with him was great.

The our actual tour began a 7:00pm with a flight of ancient stairs.   We nearly had to run up those stairs, because I was late! One wrong turn while trying to shop for family and I ended up several blocks over from where I shoulda been.  Not an auspiscious beginning for a tour with lots and lots of stairs.  That however turned out to be the only off moment!

The guide took us up to one of the rooms of the Cathedral Museum, and showed us what would have been a banquet room and gave wonderful explanations of the various carvings and colors that would have filled the room.  Even ceilings weren't left alone.  There is a whole other language being used, a kind of shorthand, that many of us are unaware of these days.  Just as we speak in sometimes unintelligible shorthand while texting, in a way so did the builders and artists who made the cathedral and surrounding buildings.  We may use the phrase IMHO (In my humble opinion!) or LOL (laughing out loud).  When these buildings were being mapped out, you might have been told your "place" in someone's humble opinion by a simple glance around you.  Look up and see plain and few ornaments in your little part of the universe and you didn't need to wonder where you fitted into the larger picture. Then all of this would have been painted too.  While our current sensibilities are accustomed to the tans, taupes, grays and browns, in their time much of the rooms as well as the cathedral proper would have been beautifully painted.  Add then banners of all sorts, tapestries and the rich colored robes and the place would have been a riot of color.  So very different from what we see today, cool and calm and monochromatic.

From these rooms our guide, Andy, took us up yet another flight of steps which brought us to the gallery in the Cathedral itself.  Amazing things to be seen and discovered here, many completely unexpected.  In it's hey day this gallery running around the cathedral would have been where pilgrims spent the night.  All of a sudden the botafumeri clearly is much more than a show stopping ornamental incense burner.  It's essentially a giant room deodorizer!

This pic was taken in '08

Look at the thickness of those ropes!!

Can you imagine waking up in the morning...looking down and seeing this in the cool light of dawn!

Here we also got an incredible up close view of what was once a rose window in the original facade of the cathedral. So sad, at least to me, to see what was once someones beautiful masterpiece pushed aside by a change in fashion.  But that still goes on today, doesn't it, out with the old and in with the new?

This area is off limits unless your on the tour, or one of the lucky people who are working on restorations up here.  This is also turns out to be the attic area of the cathedral.

Imagine this as your workspace!!  Ahh one can dream!

These giant figures are used during feistas! We were told the represent in a humorous
way pilgrims from around the world.

This is how it rests on the person carrying it!
Somehow it looks like the ultimate headache.

Now it was onward and upward to the roof itself.  I had no real idea what it might be like up there.  It was amazing.  The one and only complaint, was of myself, for being silly enough not to inquire about footwear.  I had my crocs on, which were ok, but my hiking shoes would have been much more secure.  Especially for someone who doesn't like heights all that much.

Andy our intrepid guide who patiently answered all our questions.

As you come out of the stair case this is the view that greets you straight ahead.  In clearer weather it must be unbelievable.  Although this cloud cover gave us nice even lighting.

Looking left this is what you'll see. It was funny to see how comfortable some people were up here.  Funnier still how uncomfortable some us were!

Get really brave and start wandering about anywhere...even the ridge line!

Looking down at the Plaza where I'd had a glass of champange
with Arlene the day before, celebrating our arrival in Santiago.

This curved door completely intriuged me.

Look around the city, heck look anywhere in Galicia and you'll see mosses, lichens, flowers and ferns popping out of crevices and clinging to walls.  While I found them beautiful to look at, they worried me.  I was concerned they might be causing damage to the buildings.  Andy our guide assured me that they don't.  In fact he said one of them and I'm not sure which color it was, actually acts in a protective manner for the stone face. You can see at least three colors of lichens, one moss, and two different flowers just on this one piece of ornamentation!

While looking at the building was fun...looking in was almost as much!  Being able to view parts of the great gilded altar from the roof top windows was amazing.  Someone needs to tell housekeeping they missed a spot!

Interesting and understandable, to see how the gold is only on the parts that show!

Ok...so I don't like doing windows either.

This tour was terrific and I truly recommend it to any and all going to Santiago!  But now it's time for a beer, a reward for climbing so high and getting clamy hands and feet!!   I'm off from there...humming me a little James Taylor.!!

Since my friends and family know how much I don't like heights...I had to have this picture taken up there as proof positive!  See I didn't just send my camera up with Hunter!