History

The pilgrimage to Santiago is the most outstanding and most profoundly experienced religious phenomenon of the Middle Ages, a fact that was recently recognised by the European Parliament, which designated the Way the First European Cultural Itinerary, and by UNESCO, which declared it a World Heritage route.

The discovery of the tomb of the Apostle James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist, changed the appearance of a small Roman settlement in the northwest Iberian Peninsula that, with the passing of the centuries, had become a necropolis; it was also a turning point in the spiritual history of a continent that soon set about building a road in order to reach the precious relic.