 Santiago de Compostela
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Santiago de Compostela
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GALICIA is always surprising, this part of the Northwest of Spain is a sharp contrast to the typical image of Spanish landscape abroad.
Galicia belongs to the green Europe of the Atlantic. Located at the NW of the Iberian peninsula, it has an extension of 29.434 km2 (the 5,8% of Spain total extension). To the North it borders on the Cantabric sea, to the West on the Atlantic Ocean, to the South on the neighbour Portugal and to the East it forms part, and it is also individual, of Spain.
The capital City is Santiago de Compostela. The main towns are the capital cities of the four provinces - A Coruña, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra -, Vigo and Ferrol. The population, quite scattered, is almost three million inhabitants, with a density close to 100 inhabitants per square kilometer.
Plains are scarce in this hilly landscape, but wild countryside and mountains form appealing spots and natural parks. Some mountains soar as high as two thousand metres in the massifs of Ancares, Courel, Manzaneda and Pena Trevinca. It owns a developed and articulated coastline that means one third of the Spanish littoral and presents such original forms that are not comparable to any other section, either Cantabric, Mediterranean or Atlantic; The phenomenon of the rías (estuaries) is therefore unique and peculiar to Galicia in the context of the Spanish coast.
With regard to the climate, the region is comprised by its latitude in the parallels of the temperate area of the North hemisphere, where distinguished varieties of the temperate medium latitudes and western facade are located. But it also links with the Spanish meseta and has high mountains that transform a uniformed climate in one tinged with lots of notes that go from the oceanic characteristics to the mediterranean features, in a North-South direction to the contrasted transit, shore-inland, in a West-East direction.
The hidrographic network is the resultant combination of landscape and climate. This territorial space has been named 'the Galicia of the10.000 rivers', being the many watercourses adapted to the ground roughness.
With regard to the temperatures, they are soft in general, so we can not talk about neither a severe winter nor a hot summer. It is better to point out that the annual average thermic values descend from the coast to the interior, as well as the average top temperatures.
Examples of the littoral annual average temperatures are the 13,8° in Coruña and the 14,7° in Padrón and Vigo. In the plain, the examples are the 13,7° of Monforte de Lemos and the 14° in Ourense. The values worsen in the mountains, so they are 9,7° in the Alto del Rodicio and 8° in Pedrafita do Cebreiro.
It almost always rains in Galicia; however, the 150 rainy days a year in the Northwestern coast lessen towards the interior and the Southeast to the 100 rainy days a year and even fewer. Its greatest frequency is in winter, followed (in this order) by autumn, spring and summer.
In Galicia, Galician and Castilian are both recognised as official languages. Galician is a Romance Language, that belongs to the Iberianromance family of languages. It has common aspects with portuguese (morphology and some vocabulary).
The city was born from a legend: the discover in 813 A.D. of the sepulchre of St. James The Apostle who was behaded in 44 A.D. in Palestine. King Alfonso II visited the site and ordered a modest temple and monastery to be built, erecting the center around which the city later grew.
Alfonso III built the ancient basilica at the end of the 9th Century. It was destroyed during the Moorish invasion of Almanzor in the year 997 A.D. which completely devastated the city. Santiago was rebuilt and encircled by a wall. In 1075 A.D. Bishop Diego Peláez began the building-works on the cathedral, which continued under the efficient supervision of Bishop Diego Gelmírez, a key figure in the development of the city.
The 11th and 12th Centuries were the key-days of the pilgrimages to Compostela. The Pilgrim's road to Santiago de Compostela was an extremely efficient means of scientific, artistic and literary communication, within the unmistakably rural region of Galicia, Santiago became an important center of economic and cultural activity, a melting pot of distant cultures and civilizations. At the end of the 12th Century the master-crofstman Mateo built the Pórtico de la Gloria (Gateway of Glory).
The end of the 14th Century witnessed the start of a turbulent period which lasted into the 15th Century. The arrival of Archbishop Fonseca, the founder of the University, marked the beginning of the Renaissance in Compostela. It was the Catholic Monarchs who brought the Court to the City in 1501. In 1534 the Royal Hospital and the Colegio de Fonseca were built.
At the end of the 17th Century it was the archbishops and religious orders who promoted the Baroque building frenzy which created a school of its own in the 18th Century. This style pervades the historic center of Santiago -the cathedral, the monasteries and the churches- and gives it unique character which persists today.
Apart from being famous for its university, monuments and religious and commercial activity, this city of 100,000 inhabitants is also a major center of administration, having become the capital of the Autonomous Community of Galicia in 1982. It is the seat of the Xunta (regional government), the regional parliament and other regional administrative institutions. The city plays an important role in the timber industry. It is also extremely well connected to the outside, being centrally situated between the most important urban centers in Galicia.
Santiago de Compostela will be one of the European Cities of Culture in the year 2000.
By road
From Santiag, take the A-9 motorway to go to A Coruña and Ferrol; going south, the motorway goes along the Rías Baixas passing by Pontevedra and Vigo, reaching the Portuguese border at Tui.
From Madrid to Santiago de Compostela (600 km), take the main N-VI (A-6) road to A Coruña and either take the N- in Lugo or from A Coruña the A-9 motorway.
Distances by road from Santiago de Compostela to the main cities in Galicia:
