Day 60: Roof tour

The video of today's swinging incense burner at mass,
but this time, from the back of the church. =)

October 10: When I woke up in the morning, I still hadn’t decided if I was going to spend another day in Santiago or not. When I first arrived, I figured absolutely not. One zero day was plenty! But I had such a good time the day before, catching up with several pilgrims I hadn’t seen in for weeks, and I found myself more and more inclined to spend another day in town and see who else I could find.

I went downstairs where I ate breakfast (included with the cost of the room)—cereal, toast, orange juice, muffin, and an apple. I got online and checked the weather forecast—a chance of rain today, and all but guaranteed the couple of days after that. It wasn’t a forecast I liked, and I refreshed my browser page hoping it would return something different, but it didn’t. It continued to stick with its miserable forecast.

And finally, after hemming and hawing, I finally decided to take another zero day.

Late in the morning, I headed out to the cathedral before mass to find out who showed up. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the main square, and with nothing better to do, I first wandered into a door to the left of the main entrance where I inquired about the “tower tour.” I first learned that they give guided tours of the cathedral—to areas where most peons can’t go—from Nancy, Jeannie, and MaryK the day before, but we wound up drinking at a restaurant and chatting with passing pilgrims (occasionally providing applause to newly arriving pilgrims) and missed the tour. Since I was going to be in town another day, though, I was inclined to do it. The woman there told me that an English-language “roof tour” was scheduled for 5:00 that afternoon. Ten euros for non-pilgrims, and eight euros for pilgrims. (Our credentials were our proof of pilgrim-ess.)

“I’ll be back at 5:00, then!” I told the lady. =)








 The roof tour was absolutely awesome, and it is indeed an actual roof tour. The tour guide took us out onto the uneven roof. The rain had mostly stopped, but drops still sputtered and a terrific wind blew through shredding my umbrella to pieces. Literally. There’s not really much to report about the roof tour. We walked around it, and the guide told us about the cathedral and carvings and such. The views were wonderful, though, and we could see stuff from angles that most people will never see. Looking down from a bird’s eye view into the cathedral was pretty awesome. =)



 

Looking down into the south side of the cathedral from the roof.