Northern Spain
-- Guardian
Explores La Rioja, famed for its vanilla-like wine, and the magnificent Pyrenees – visits Cantabria, with its international arts festival, and the lively summer resort of Santander – takes in the prehistoric art of the Puento Viesgo Caves, Spain’s finest Visigothic architecture in Castilla-León, and the Basque lands of Navarra and Euzkadi – provides expert guidance on canoeing, fishing and diving in the rapids of the Asturias and around the Bay of Biscay, plus golfing in Gijón
Extract: The Pilgrimage to Santiago
The Official History
No saint on the calendar has as many names as Spain's patron – Iago, Diego, Jaime, Jacques, Jacobus, Santiago or, in English, James the Greater. James the fisherman was one of the first disciples chosen by Jesus, who nicknamed him Boanerges, 'the son of thunder', after his booming voice. After the Crucifixion, he seems to have been a rather ineffectual proselytizer for the faith; in the year 44 Herod Agrippa in Caesarea beheaded him and threw his body to the dogs. But Spain had another task in store for James: nothing less than posthumously leading a 700-year-old crusade against the peninsula's infidels. ...click here to read the rest
Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls can be reached at: michel.pauls@wanadoo.fr
