2nd Camino – Day 7 – Negreira to Santiago

Our final day into Santiago and again quite a long day for us, 20.6 kilometers but lots of ups and downs, a lot more than expected. According to the Gronze profile map coming out of Ponte Maceira, there’s a steady incline and then a decline but there seem to be ups and downs all day long, so, it was quite taxing on the legs. But a good walk nonetheless, lots and lots of people coming the other way, of course, starting out in Santiago or coming from beyond Santiago through Santiago and out towards Fisterra. But generally, a pretty good day.

We had a couple of breaks along the way and then of course you get that wonderful view of the cathedral about two kilometers out from Santiago and there’s a viewing point there with a bench. And it was great to be finally heading back into Santiago, back into the square, the wonderful environment of the square with hundreds of pilgrims meeting up and a wonderful final day too, I suppose, what is our second Camino of this trip.

After collecting our Compostela and having some lunch we hung around in the square a bit longer, the square next to the cathedral and spent some time in the cathedral. It’s interesting to note – it’s a great place for people watching and there seem to be many types of sort of pilgrims coming into the square.

There’s the organised groups, large groups who are boisterous and joyous coming into the square. You can see the informal groups, the Camino families meeting up and people who haven’t seen each other for days or weeks joining up again.

And then it’s interesting around the periphery – is really what I call the thinkers and towards the back of the square, looking up at the cathedral and at the sides, there are people who just sit and reflect. If you look closely, there’s quite a few tears and these are the people who seem to be deeply impacted by their journey and they’ll sit there for quite a long time just absorbing what they’ve achieved and reflecting on their journey and I could sit there for hours just watching the scene in that square it’s a wonderful ending.