How to arrive to the Pilgrims Statue?

In this video, our Tee Travel’s expert tour guide (www.tee-travel.com) will show you how to arrive to the Pilgrims Statue, starting off at Monte do Gozo, where you will also visit the monument that commemorates Pope John Paul II and his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1982. Keep on reading! We’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Monte do Gozo and San Marcos’ Chapel:

Every pilgrim who walks the Way of Saint James, more specifically those who choose the French Way, the North Way, the Primitive Way and Vía de la Plata, are eager to arrive at Monte do Gozo to catch a glimpse of the Cathedral Towers and take a selfie next to the Pilgrims Statue. Right there, they will also find an astounding view over the city of Santiago de Compostela, before reaching the Cathedral of Santiago, located in the square known as Plaza del Obradoiro.

Monte do Gozo (roughly translated as «Mount of Joy») is a hill at 380 meters above sea level. Its name comes from that moment of happiness the pilgrims felt once they get to the top of the hill and see from afar, for the first time, the reason of their pilgrimage, the Cathedral Towers, letting them know that they are very near their goal.

Here, the pilgrim will also find San Marcos’ Chapel, a very small building with an intriguing feature: the altar lies at the west end of the church, instead of pointing east, to Jerusalem, as most Christian shrines do. According to an interesting legend, San Marcos (Saint Mark) was on his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, he had already left behind the stream Lavacolla and had to go up the slope A Rexidoira when he met a young pilgrim who seemed to know a lot about the Way of Saint James. San Marcos asked him how far they were from Santiago de Compostela to what the young man replied: ‘Oh, very far! I started in Germany and still have to walk more or less the same distance. See these many pairs of sandals? I will need at least another pair to get to Santiago, as it is located at the very end of the Earth, on the edge of the world.’ San Marcos was so disappointed that he abandoned his pilgrimage and built this chapel where he decided to stay. What San Marcos didn’t know was that the young pilgrim had tricked him, as he wanted to arrive to the top of Monte do Gozo the first, since the first person who sees Santiago from the hill becomes the “King of the Pilgrimage”,

In the chapel, you have to stamp your Pilgrim Credential or Pilgrim Passport, a document that certifies your pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Along the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James), particularly when it comes to the last 100 kilometres if you make the way by foot of on horseback, or 200 kilometres if you choose to ride a bike, you must fill the Pilgrim Credential with the stamps you will find in different building, such as churches, shelters or even post office, at least twice a day in order to get the Compostela.

From this point, if you want to take that long-awaited selfie with the Pilgrims Statues, put up in the Holy Year of 1993, you will have to walk for around 600 meters, and back. You will also enjoy a wonderful view over Santiago de Compostela which will make it up for those extra steps.

The route to Santiago de Compostela: The first pilgrim

It was the year of 813. One night, the hermit Pelayo beheld a sky of shooting stars that shone above a hill. The story says that right in that moment the Apóstol Santiago (James Apostle) visited him as if in a dream and revealed him that the lights over the field where pointing the place where he had been buried many years before. Immediately, the hermit went to that exact location and started digging out the area where he had witnessed a field of stars («campo de estrellas» in Spanish, which later became «Compostela»). There he found the Tomb of the Apostle. He then decided to report the finding to the bishop of Iria Flavia (now known as Padrón) and the medieval King Alfonso II of Asturias, nicknamed «el Casto» (the chaste, the pure), who ruled over the regions of Galicia, Asturias and Leon, the ancient Kingdom of Galicia. The monarch became the first Pilgrim to walk the Way of Saint James and started what now is one of the most important religious pilgrimage routes. He walked what we know now as the Primitive Way.

If you want to know more about the Way of Saint James and the different routes and adventures we have in store for you, then visit our web https://www.spainincoming.info/tours/tours-spain/the-way-of-st-james/ and contact us! We’ll love to help you with the organization of your next experience in Galicia!

Видео How to arrive to the Pilgrims Statue? канала Tee Travel