OLD TOWN OF SPAIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 18

OLD TOWN OF SPAIN

Santiago just breathes of the past and has nothing to do with the present. Its narrow granite-paved streets and arcaded houses, its little dark shops, where many small trades are carried, on in the sight of the passer-by, its ancient churches and chapels, its* quaint old street-foun-tains, its massive cathedral with its glorious western gate and unique giant censer of solid silver are just as they, were centuries ago. The place has placidly slumbered and allowed the modern stream of sightseers and travelling public to pass by in blissful ignorance that such a wealth, of antiquarian and architectural store existed, says a writer in the London “Ou-took." ‘Few could toil you off-hand where Santiago is, and its namesake in the now world is certainly better known than the mother city. Yet Santiago de -Compostela is easily accessible from Vigo or Corunna by public mo-tor-cars, which make the journey in a few hours. It lies inland, midway between tho two ports, in the northwest angle of the Spanish peninsula, in the midst of the rich agricultural district of Galicia, rightly called the Gaften of Spain. Like Bologna, in North Italy, Santiago abounds in covered-in. arcaded streets — cool and inviting, some very narrow; the narrowest X found to be just 44r$ inches wide, no more. These ways all lead to the cathedral, which crowns tho hill upon vrMcii tho city is built. Tho Compostela part of tho name is now unheard, and the. city is known simply by its title of Saint Janies or Santiago.