Santiago de Compostela - Spain

Santiago de Compostela is the spanish city on the top of my must visit list. I'd love to visit it but unfortunately i think this won't happen anytime soon.

This card was sent by Margarida.

Santiago de Compostela  is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain.

The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the city's cathedral, as destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route originated in the 9th century. In 1985 the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Santiago de Compostela Cathedral  is the reputed burial-place of Saint James the Greater, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. The building is a Romanesque structure with later Gothic and Baroque additions.

According to legend, the apostle Saint James the Greater brought Christianity to the Celts in the Iberian Peninsula. In 44 AD he was beheaded in Jerusalem. His remains were later brought back to Galicia, Spain. Following Roman persecutions of Spanish Christians, his tomb was abandoned in the 3rd century. Still according to legend, this tomb was rediscovered in 814 AD by the hermit Pelagius, after witnessing strange lights in the night sky. Bishop Theodomirus of Iria recognized this as a miracle and informed king Alfonso II of Asturias and Galicia (791-842). The king ordered the construction of a chapel on the site. Legend has it that the king became the first pilgrim to this shrine. This was followed by a first church in 829 AD and again in 899 AD by a pre-Romanesque church, at the order of king Alfonso III of León, causing the gradual development of a major place of pilgrimage.

Construction of the present cathedral began in 1075 under the reign of Alfonso VI of Castile (1040–1109). Construction was halted several times and, according to the Liber Sancti Iacobi, the last stone was laid in 1122. But by then, the construction of the cathedral was certainly not finished. The cathedral was consecrated in 1128 in the presence of king Alfonso IX of Leon. - in: wikipedia