All the news, numbers and gossip from Santiago

[JohnnieWalker]

Hola

Greetings from Santiago which today is very much a windy city. A few days ago another record was broken when pilgrims numbers this year exceeded that of the Holy Year in 2004. This is the first time a regular year has outstripped a Holy Year. A sign of continuing growth in people walking the Camino.

Santiago is preparing for Christmas with an ice rink in the Palaza Qunintana for the first time. This isn't quite on the scale of New York but the local newspapers have of course been making the comparison!

The Cathedral is preparing for the spectacular ceremony when the Feast of the Translación is celebrated on 30 December to close this its 800th Anniversary. My Gallego friends firmly believe this feast is more important that then Feast of St James on 25th July - see the pictures.

For more information, pictures and stories about all this and more + a full analysis of the numbers for the year click: http://www.johnniewalker-santiago.blogspot.com

Best wishes

John

 

[sillydoll]

Johnnie - you are a font of never-ending information, thank you! I went onto your blog and it makes fascinating reading, especially the bit about your Gallego friends.

No matter what the date - I'm sure the celebrations will be great. We shouldn't get too hung up on dates. The Saint's dates were all changed with the different rites and calendars adopted by the church and here is some interesting, though confusing, info on those important dates!

The 25th July, the day St Jame's relics were found, was adopted on the Roman rite calendar, which was actually the 5th August on the Tridentine Rite calendar. (The 25th July 1100 would have been the 18th July on the Julian calendar.)

The 30th December, on the Mozarabic rite calendar, was the day his relics were relocated to the small town of Compostela. (The 30th December 1100 would have been the 23rd December).

His feast day is also commemorated on 29 April in the Orthodox Christian liturgical calendar (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar: 30 April currently falls on 13 May of the modern Gregorian Calendar).

St James has four feast days - 25th July, 30 December and 23 May (and 29th April).

Today is 2nd December on the Gregorian calendar but would have been 19 November if we were still using the Julian Calendar.

This serves to teach us not to get too hung up on dates!

Edit: If you would like to calculate your date of birth on all the different calendars you can do so here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I don't think there is a single Spaniard in the National Hockey League, so that ice rink may spur some interest in the sport! With bullfighting on the decline, the only good fights left might be on the hockey ice ...