peregrina nicole
RIP 2016
Hello! I am Peregrina Nicole and I'm working in the Oficina del Peregrinos during the fiesta of Santiago (St James). The feast day itself is July 25, but quite a lot happens on the eve of the festival (July 24), including the fireworks. One of the local newspapers, La Voz de Galicia, says that most of the hotel rooms in Santiago and surrounding areas have already been booked for the 24th and 25th. If you are planning on staying in Santiago on these days, I cannot recommend highly enough trying to pre-book whatever is left. There are a lot of peregrinos who are arriving now and will arrive for the festival. However, there are also lots of non-peregrino tourists, as Santiago is the patron saint of Spain. As far as I've been told, the King and President will be here for the mass. This gives you an idea of: a) how important this festival is; and b) how heightened security will be.
To go back to numbers, on July 25, 2014, 1731 peregrinos arrived to get their compostelas. On July 25, 2015, 1853 arrived. Already, yesterday (July 20, 2016) we had 1010 peregrinos. This year the papers are predicting more than last year for July 25, 2016. I spoke to volunteers who worked on July 25, 2015. They said that peregrinos showed up expecting that the Oficina would find room for them. We don't do this and do not have the infrastructure to do so. When peregrinos ask for rooms, we direct them to Tourist Information. However, there is a limit to what they can do when rooms run out. Last year, the Oficina recommended that peregrinos could get spaces to sleep in Monte Gozo. There are buses from Monte Gozo to the Praza do Galicia (just on the edge of the historic centre). This was not an ideal solution for most peregrinos as it involved 'going backwards', but at least it was a place that still had beds for peregrinos.
Getting into the Cathedral is another issue. You can no longer enter with a back pack, so these need to be stored before you can be let in. The Oficina del Peregrino has some places, the Correos (post office) in the old town has more places and there are also places in a Peregrino Service place at the top of the stairs above the Praza Prateria (by the entrance to the Cathedral), but to the right on the Praza Quinteros. Peregrino House on Rua Nova will also do backpack storage. Volunteers working last July 25 reported angry peregrinos who showed up assuming that getting a credencial and putting their bags in storage would be a quick enough process for them to get a seat in the Cathedral for the noon mass. If you have a big queue of peregrinos nothing moves quickly because we will still look over your credenicales to make sure that you have the appropriate stamps, we still have to store left luggage in an appropriate way and shouting at us is not going to make things move more quickly for you.
It is worth mentioning that some of the staff are employees of the Oficina. However, those of us in blue T-shirts are volunteers. We have paid our own airfare to Santiago and we work for free because we all have had positive experiences on the Camino and want to give something back.
I know that this all sounds a bit negative, but I do hope that peregrinos arriving on July 24 and 25 have a positive experience and are well prepared!
Buen Camino!
To go back to numbers, on July 25, 2014, 1731 peregrinos arrived to get their compostelas. On July 25, 2015, 1853 arrived. Already, yesterday (July 20, 2016) we had 1010 peregrinos. This year the papers are predicting more than last year for July 25, 2016. I spoke to volunteers who worked on July 25, 2015. They said that peregrinos showed up expecting that the Oficina would find room for them. We don't do this and do not have the infrastructure to do so. When peregrinos ask for rooms, we direct them to Tourist Information. However, there is a limit to what they can do when rooms run out. Last year, the Oficina recommended that peregrinos could get spaces to sleep in Monte Gozo. There are buses from Monte Gozo to the Praza do Galicia (just on the edge of the historic centre). This was not an ideal solution for most peregrinos as it involved 'going backwards', but at least it was a place that still had beds for peregrinos.
Getting into the Cathedral is another issue. You can no longer enter with a back pack, so these need to be stored before you can be let in. The Oficina del Peregrino has some places, the Correos (post office) in the old town has more places and there are also places in a Peregrino Service place at the top of the stairs above the Praza Prateria (by the entrance to the Cathedral), but to the right on the Praza Quinteros. Peregrino House on Rua Nova will also do backpack storage. Volunteers working last July 25 reported angry peregrinos who showed up assuming that getting a credencial and putting their bags in storage would be a quick enough process for them to get a seat in the Cathedral for the noon mass. If you have a big queue of peregrinos nothing moves quickly because we will still look over your credenicales to make sure that you have the appropriate stamps, we still have to store left luggage in an appropriate way and shouting at us is not going to make things move more quickly for you.
It is worth mentioning that some of the staff are employees of the Oficina. However, those of us in blue T-shirts are volunteers. We have paid our own airfare to Santiago and we work for free because we all have had positive experiences on the Camino and want to give something back.
I know that this all sounds a bit negative, but I do hope that peregrinos arriving on July 24 and 25 have a positive experience and are well prepared!
Buen Camino!
