The cathedral façade on the Obradoiro square is dark, baroque and enormous, but the thing that stays with you is the sound: a bagpiper in an archway, footsteps on wet granite and the tired cheers of pilgrims arriving after weeks on the road. Santiago has been the end of the Camino for over a thousand years, and arriving by motorbike is a very different pace, but the feeling in the square is the same. People hug, cry, take their boots off and lie flat on the paving stones.
Inside the cathedral, the Pórtico de la Gloria, carved by Master Mateo in the late twelfth century, is the Romanesque masterpiece of the building, with figures that seem to chat to each other. The great censer, the botafumeiro, swings through the transept on special occasions and weighs over fifty kilos. The old town around it is a dense web of stone arcades, with university students, pilgrim shops and little bars.
Getting in and out is simple if you stay on the ring roads, but the centre itself is largely closed to private traffic, so park outside the old town and walk. Roads out of the city lead into the soft green hills of Galicia, with oak and eucalyptus, small stone villages and a very local feel. Rain is the main variable: it can arrive from the Atlantic at any time of year, so a waterproof layer should always be within reach. Wet granite is slippery, whether in the old town or on the cobbled lanes around it.
The city has about ninety-five thousand residents and no shortage of fuel, food and beds. Try the Tarta de Santiago, an almond cake dusted with sugar in the shape of the cross of St James, and the seafood of the nearby rías. A late dinner is normal, and the plaza is at its best at night, when the stone glows in the lamplight and the crowds thin out.