Santiago de Compostela and Tower of Hercules

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Santiago de Compostela

   Whatever time you arrive in Santiago de Compostela, you will probably find someone crying in the Praza do Obradoiro. They have walked for weeks, or days, or the last hundred kilometres the pilgrim rule requires, and the cathedral at the end of it is as big and golden as they hoped. Santiago has been the goal of the Camino since the ninth century, when a hermit was said to have found the tomb of the apostle James here, and the city grew up around the shrine. The cathedral you see now is largely Romanesque in its bones, with a baroque front that glows when it is not raining, which in Galicia is a fair part of the year.

   Read the complete Santiago de Compostela write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Santiago de Compostela is where the day begins. Next is Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes.

2. 2. Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes

   Pilgrims walking the Camino del Norte toward Santiago reach Sobrado dos Monxes tired and footsore, and the sight of the huge granite Baroque façade of the monastery, rising out of a quiet Galician village, must feel like a miracle. Sobrado was founded as a monastery in the tenth century, became Cistercian in the twelfth, and grew into one of the most powerful abbeys in Galicia. After the dissolution of the monasteries in the nineteenth century, it fell into ruin, until Cistercian monks returned in the 1950s and began restoring it. Today they run a pilgrim hostel in part of the buildings.

   Read the complete Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tower of Hercules.

3. 3. Tower of Hercules

   On a rocky headland at the edge of A Coruña, a city of about two hundred and fifty thousand people on the north-west corner of Spain, stands a grey stone tower nearly fifty-five metres tall. It is the Tower of Hercules, and it is the oldest Roman lighthouse in the world still in use, which makes it a good deal older than almost anything else that works in Europe. UNESCO inscribed it in 2009.

   Read the complete Tower of Hercules write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Tower of Hercules. Next is back through Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes.

4. 4. back through Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Monaster de Sobrado Dos Monxes, late in the day. Next is Santiago de Compostela.

5. 5. Santiago de Compostela

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Santiago de Compostela write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Santiago de Compostela. That is the ride.