So, being November, it's a little on the cool side for the beach -- but on such a gorgeous sunny day, this picture certainly fits in well with many people's conventional idea of Spain.
All the same, if you were to visit this corner of Spain, you would see some things and hear some things that would mightily puzzle you. This is most definitely not the same country as Madrid or Malaga, Sitges or Sevilla. We're in the Basque country of northeastern Spain, in its largest city: Bilbao.
In Spain's devolved constitution, the smaller Basque region has standing as a partially self-governing entity within Spain. The larger area inhabited by the Basque people, which spans the western half of the Pyrenees (including a sizable piece of southwestern France) and a large portion of the northern Spanish coast, is actually composed of several of these devolved administrative units.
The Basques (Euskara in their own language) are a unique national group with no particular linguistic or cultural links to either Spain or France. Indeed, the Basque language (Euskara Batua) has no links to any other known language of the human race. It's believed that it likely predates the arrival in Europe of the Indo-European language families which include almost all other European languages, including English. Since the grammatical structure is so wildly different from all of its neighbours, it's considered one of the most excruciatingly difficult languages for a non-native speaker to learn.
Just the words that Wikipedia uses to explain it have got my tongue tangled in knots. Translate this fragment, if you will. "...with its agglutinative morphology and ergative–absolutive alignment...."
To a visitor in Basque country, it mostly shows up in place names and signs which can look downright strange to the visitor.
Bilbao (Bilbo in Basque -- please park any cheap Lord of the Rings jokes right there), is a city of some 350,000 people in a larger metropolitan area of nearly one million. Famously, and unusually for the larger land of Spain, it has in most years more rainy days than sunny days, a good reason not to plan your beach holiday here. That being so, it seems rather perverse that we got our first indisputably sunny day of the cruise in Bilbao. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day, until the last half-hour before sunset.
The city centre and historic port is located on the banks of the Nervión River, some distance upstream from the mouth where it empties into the Bay of Biscay. It took our tour about half an hour to drive from the modern port at the river mouth and reach the centre of the city.
First, then, a couple of pictures of the port, taken later in the day from the Emerald Princess. The beach picture above was the view from the ship's east side. These views are on the west.
In this view, the mouth of the river is between the two breakwaters across the bay on the left side of the photo.
Now, let's go back to the chilly hour before the dawn when we hauled ourselves off the ship along what seemed like a mile of gangways and a huge, modern terminal where none of the customs facilities were in use (cruise passengers, as usual, are pre-cleared before landing), then down and outside to a tour coach. There may not have been any customs officials around, but the terminal was stiff with at least a dozen, maybe more, National Police in uniform, armed with formidable guns. Eyes straight ahead, no smart remarks, and try not to think about the undeclared kleenex in your pocket which you swiped from the bathroom in your cabin.
Our first stopping point in the city was the hilltop park of Artxandako, just east of the downtown area, which gave a splendid view over the centre of Bilbao. Our bus took us all the way up to the park, but you can also get there from below by a modern funicular railway.
It's sobering to realize that, as recently as fifty years ago, the mountains just beyond the city were all pitted and scarred with the workings of numerous iron mines.
These were kept awake long after their economic viability had expired,
to try to avoid massive unemployment which could foment serious social
unrest in the Basque country. The Franco dictatorship paid huge
subsidies to the mining companies to keep the mines open, and the democratic government which
succeeded it after Franco's death did likewise. What stopped it all was
the desire of Spain to join the European community, which forbids
state-owned companies and state subsidies of industries.
Bilbao then was forced to join the numerous other communities around the world which have struggled to achieve new viability in the face of such massive economic dislocation. What intrigued me about this whole tale was the guide's explanation of how each proposed new development was met with a grumpy chorus of, "No! Don't waste our money on that! We want a mine!" I heard the same many times during my years in Elliot Lake, as it weathered a similar painful transition.
Despite the naysayers, Bilbao is now a vibrant modern city, the grime of its iron-mining past long gone, and with public services and amenities of enviable quality.
The city centre is an intriguing mixture of new and old, the new sometimes (but not always) imitating the old quite successfully in order to fit in better.
Of course, Bilbao's crown jewel is the extraordinary Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum, an institution which came into being when the Guggenheim Foundation found itself sitting on many times the amount of art that could be displayed at one time in its flagship museum in New York. Our visit included a stop with time to walk around -- certainly not enough time to go inside and visit. So I don't know how well Gehry's titanium-clad edifice works as a place to display art, but I am sure that it is a quite extraordinary art work in its own right. The best decision I made all day was to detach from my tour group and walk all the way around the museum's sculptural exterior on my own.
Back at the ship, I took advantage of the brilliant sunshine to enjoy a bit of top-deck time, including a quick dip in the pool (definitely too chilly for me to stay) and a sit in the hot tub. That sun felt awesome, even if the water was too cold for comfort.
I didn't set out for further adventures in Bilbao, even though there was a twice-hourly free shuttle from the ship to downtown, mainly because I was tired from a couple of nights of restless sleep and wanted to catch up. So, I caught up, for over an hour, in the afternoon, and then got to work on this blog post out on my balcony, which was on the sunset side of the ship. And it was just on sunset when we sailed for our next port of call.
Source Base Map: https://freevectormaps.com/world-maps/europe/WRLD-EU-01-0002?ref=atr
Right at the northwestern corner of Spain is where you can locate the city of A Coruña. That's the name in Galician, the home language of this devolved region of Spain. Unlike the intricacies of Basque, Galician is a "Romance" language, descended from the Latin of the ancient Romans, and so similar to Spanish, Italian, and French -- but most of all similar to its near neighbour from the south, Portuguese. The city's name in Spanish is La Coruña, almost the same, and it was long known in English as Corunna. The letter "ñ" works exactly the same in Galician as in Spanish: just pronounce the word as if there were a "y" after the "n": "Corunya."
It's a thriving modern city with a large and energetic cargo port and cruise terminal. In particular, it's a major point of entry for imported oil and natural gas. It's also a key recreational port for yachters.
The ornate building at the end of the cruise pier used to be a private club for the city's well-to-do merchant class, a place to meet, socialize, and hold lavish balls, weddings, banquets, and the like.
No doubt, A Coruña could be a very interesting place to visit, but I had set my sights on a half-day tour to a place which has for long exerted a genuine magnetic pull on me.
An hour's drive southeast of the harbour lies the city of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia and the site of an extraordinary pilgrimage shrine. The tradition holds that the remains of the Apostle James, after the death of Christ and his own martyrdom, were brought to Galicia and buried here. A shepherd in 813 AD was led by a vision of a star to find the burial site, and soon a church was founded, named in honour of Saint James the Great ("Santiago" is derived from the medieval Galician "Sanctiagu" for "Saint James"). The Romanesque cathedral which now stands on the same site houses the relics of the saint. In the Middle Ages, it became a renowned site for pilgrimages, and thousands of pilgrims travelled here from all points of the European compass. The pilgrims adopted for their symbol the saint's symbol, a scallop shell. In Santiago's old town area, the Pilgrim's Way to the shrine is signposted by metal scallop shells embedded in the pavement every hundred metres.
They mostly came on foot, following the Way of Saint James along the Basque and Galician coasts, beginning a pilgrimage tradition which survives to the present day.
This concentration of religious fervour inspired an equivalent concentration of religious communities, some of which still function today. One, which you pass on the walk from the coach station into the old town, is the Franciscan monastery church.
The relative plainness of the church finds its counterpart in the simplicity of St. Francis of Assisi, shown on this statue outside the church with his arms outspread in blessing.
The Franciscans (and the Benedictines too -- more on them in a moment) came here and built this long building primarily to house pilgrims.
Other buildings were devoted to such purposes as well. This pilgrims' hospital, built in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile, was divided between rooms for male pilgrims on the left and female pilgrims on the right. We would call it a "hostel" today, but since many pilgrims needed to be treated for illnesses, the use of the term "hospital" in this case is believed to be the ancestor of our modern use of the term. Today the King's and Queen's Hospital is a very deluxe parador, a hotel for the modern pilgrim of considerable means. It fronts the north side of the principal square, with the cathedral on the east side.
Directly across the square from the cathedral, on the west side, is the Paxo de Roxas, the "Palace of Roxas." Today it serves as the City Hall.
Facing the north entrance of the cathedral is the Benedictine monastery and nunnery, with the founder of the order, Saint Benedict, standing with staff in hand above the entrance. In a small courtyard nearby is the entrance to the Benedictine church. One quick look inside the church shows that the Franciscans' ideals of lifelong poverty and chastity held little interest for Benedict's followers.
The Benedictines, though, were entirely representative of their times -- and only a small part of the total picture in Santiago de Compostela. Over the centuries, the wealth of the bishopric of Santiago became so great that the dumpy old Romanesque exterior of the cathedral simply would not do. There's probably no other Romanesque church in the world whose identity has been so painstakingly concealed behind such excesses of Renaissance and Baroque decorative arts, including facades, towers, domes, clocks, bells, and more. Here is the west or main facade, facing the principal square.
The north facade, not as tall but scarcely less elaborate.
In this picture of the east facade, the door on the left where people are entering is the Holy Door, which is opened only during the years of Jubilee. The Jubilee or Holy Year is celebrated every time the patronal festival, the Feast Day of Saint James the Great, July 25, falls on a Sunday. It actually happened last year (2021), but the diocese petitioned Rome and received a papal dispensation to celebrate the Jubilee in 2022 instead, because of the pandemic.
Strangely enough, the original Romanesque south facade was left as it was. Perhaps our tour guide hit the correct explanation when he said that the money ran out.
You may have to wait to get into the cathedral. The doors are barred to casual visitors when Mass is being celebrated. Once the mass ended, there was quite a lineup waiting at both south and east doors. But it took only a few minutes for the line to move inside. Just inside the Holy Door, a second line forms -- a line of those who wish to descend into the crypt under the high altar to view and pray at the shrine and tomb of Saint James. Others may simply proceed into the main part of the structure.
Once you get right inside, the church's Romanesque pedigree is plainly apparent in the structure, with its heavy round arches and small windows placed high up in the walls. But so is the Baroque excess, plainly seen in the high altar. As a musician, I simply couldn't resist the intriguing placement of the organ pipes. I don't know for sure, but it seems likely that the instrument includes a couple of brass trumpet stops, since horizontal pipes like these can serve for making very good trumpet sounds.
The art work which I consider the crown and glory of the cathedral is, surprisingly enough, very neatly concealed behind the 17th century grand facade. This is the "Portico de la Gloria," which is considered the finest surviving example of Romanesque sculptural art in the Iberian peninsula. Due to its location, very close behind the newer facade, it's extremely difficult to photograph on site. Here is a replica displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.
M.Chohan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
If you look around the rim of the central archway, there are the four and twenty Elders from the book of Revelation, grouped around Christ the King, and holding among them a whole orchestra of assorted medieval instruments. It was this fascinating sculpture that inspired British musician Philip Pickett to reproduce the instrumental ensemble shown above the doors for his classic recording, The Pilgrimage to Santiago, a long-time favourite in my music collection.
So why have I resorted to an internet photo of a piece of art I've been wanting to see in person for decades? Simply put, I found out when I got here that it can only be viewed by an extremely limited group of lucky ducks each day, and the spaces for this visit are booked up far, far in advance. Sure enough, when I went as far back towards the west entrance as was allowed, there were the blessed few -- no more than a dozen of them.
Moral: research, research, research!
But these things happen. Even if I hadn't managed to see the Portico, the rest of the Santiago experience was captivating enough to be well worth the time and money involved in visiting.
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