Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

Listen first. Under your feet, the granite of the great square is smooth and slightly damp, polished by centuries of boots. Somewhere behind you, a bagpipe plays a slow Galician tune. Backpacks drop to the stones. A walker sits down, then lies flat, staring up at the towers. For many people in this square, this is the end of a journey of hundreds of kilometres. For you, it is the beginning of a story.

The square is called Praza do Obradoiro. The name comes from the word for workshop, because stonemasons once cut and carved their blocks here while the cathedral rose above them. Look at the colour of that stone. It is local granite, grey and gold, and in places it is green with lichen and moss. Galicia is a rainy corner of Spain, and the rain has stained and softened the facade over the years. On a wet day, the whole front of the building looks darker, almost bronze.

The story of this place begins with a grave. According to tradition, Saint James, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, preached in the far west of the Roman world. After his death in Jerusalem, his followers are said to have carried his body by boat to this coast. Then the grave was forgotten. Legend has it that in the early ninth century, a hermit named Pelayo saw strange lights shining over a field at night. The local bishop, Theodomir, investigated, and declared that the tomb of the apostle had been found.

Some people say the name Compostela comes from the Latin for a field of stars. Others link it to an old word for a burial ground. Scholars still debate it, so you can choose the version you prefer. What is certain is the result. A small church was built over the tomb, then a larger one, and pilgrims began to arrive from all over Christian Europe. The routes they walked became the Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James.

Here is a dramatic chapter that many visitors miss. In 997, the Muslim military leader Almanzor raided Santiago and left much of the town in ruins. The chronicles say he spared the tomb itself. But he took the church bells back to Córdoba, in the south of Spain, and Christian captives had to carry them. More than two centuries later, when Córdoba was conquered by the Christian king Ferdinand the Third, the story goes that the bells came back north... this time on the backs of Muslim prisoners.

The cathedral you see began in 1075. It was built in the Romanesque style, the heavy, round-arched style of medieval Europe before the Gothic period. Inside, it still has that shape: a long nave in the form of a cross, with galleries above, so that crowds of pilgrims could move around the building and even sleep inside it. But from the square, you cannot see much of that medieval church. It is hidden behind a later skin of stone.

That skin is the Baroque facade, added in the eighteenth century by the architect Fernando de Casas Novoa. Baroque is the theatrical style of that age, full of movement, columns and decoration. Look up and follow the lines. The towers climb in layers, each one lighter than the last, until they end in small lanterns and crosses against the sky. Look for the figure of Saint James near the top, dressed as a pilgrim. The facade has a practical job too. It protects the older doorway behind it from the wind and rain.

That older doorway is the real treasure. It is called the Portico of Glory, carved by a sculptor known as Master Mateo in the late twelfth century. Around two hundred figures fill its arches. Christ sits at the centre, showing his wounds. Around him are apostles, prophets, and the twenty-four elders from the Book of Revelation, each holding a musical instrument. Musicians and historians have studied these carvings closely, because they show what medieval instruments really looked like.

Now for a surprise. These figures were once painted in bright colours, and traces of that paint survive. A long restoration, completed in 2018, cleaned away dirt and old repairs and brought some of those colours back. For centuries, pilgrims also touched the central column, below Saint James, and their hands wore a deep print into the marble. Today the column is protected, to save what remains. Visits to the portico are controlled, so you may need to book a time slot in advance.

There is a small human detail here too. On the back of the central column, facing the altar, kneels a figure that many people believe is Master Mateo himself. Locals call him the Saint of the Bumps. For generations, students knocked their heads against his to absorb a little of his genius. That tradition is now discouraged to protect the stone. But it tells you something about this place. People do not only look at it. They want to touch it.

Inside, follow the crowd toward the main altar, a golden Baroque structure around a seated statue of Saint James. Behind the altar, a narrow stair lets visitors climb up and embrace the statue from behind. It is a quick, quiet moment, and many pilgrims treat it as the true end of the Camino. Below the altar is the crypt, where a silver casket holds the relics said to be those of the apostle. People pause there, some to pray, some simply to look.

And then there is the Botafumeiro. It is a huge silver-coloured censer, a vessel for burning incense, hanging from ropes high in the crossing of the church. On certain occasions, a team of men in red robes pulls the rope together. The censer swings higher and higher, almost to the roof, trailing smoke across the transept. It is a spectacle, but it began with a purpose. Some say the smoke once helped to cover the smell of crowds of tired, unwashed travellers.

Before you leave, walk around the outside. The building has several squares, and each has a different mood. On the Praza da Quintana, you will find the Holy Door. It opens only in Holy Years, when the feast of Saint James on the twenty-fifth of July falls on a Sunday. Notice the scallop shells carved into the stone around the city. The shell is the symbol of the pilgrim, and many walkers carry one on their backpacks.

Now come back to the square. The light has probably changed a little since you arrived. Watch the people around you: a family taking photographs, a walker with bandaged feet, a student crossing on the way to class. This building has received travellers for more than a thousand years, and it still does, every single day. As you walk away, look back once at the towers. Many pilgrims do the same thing, just before the streets close around them.