Camino de Santiago (2022)
Inhalt/Content
Santiago de Compostela
After our Camino, this was now like an epilogue. We have arrived. We were no longer pilgrims. Now we were just two Germans who wanted to see Santiago. Our everyday life was different and it started with the fact that we even slept until 7 am today. Yes, for the Camino de Santiago it’s really quite a late time to get up. But we were no longer on the Camino. We prepared our own breakfast and then went to a nearby mall with a hypermarket, but not to buy groceries. Instead, we headed straight for the shoe department. Please no more hiking shoes. Yes, our hiking boots have done us a very good service, but now they were absolutely worn out and we simply wanted new and, above all, lighter footwear.
Back at the accommodation, we first wrote postcards, which we then threw into one of the mailboxes on the way to the city center. Next to the cathedral, there was a pilgrimage museum. It was actually set up like a normal museum: exhibits in glass cases and text next to them. But, the entrance was free and we actually found the museum really good. That was mainly due to the topic. We had been pilgrims ourselves for the last 12 days and now we learned a lot about how people started this journey hundreds of years ago and where else in the world pilgrimages take place. This made the museum one of the most interesting places here in Santiago, next to the Cathedral of course. Afterward, we did something again that we didn’t do on the way: We bought a lot of souvenirs, not only for ourselves but also as gifts for friends and family. We would have had to carry everything we would have bought on the Camino. But now it was different because now we walked through the city without our heavy backpacks. For example, Kevin bought a T-shirt with a Pac-Man and Camino design.
And even while we were sleeping we did something we wouldn’t have done on the Camino de Santiago: we slept in the same place for two nights. The journey was over and suddenly everything was different. Everything that seemed normal to us before the trip now seemed strange to us. That’s how it is when you arrive.
