COURSE – EL CAMINO DE SANTIAGO: THE WAY OF SAINT JAMES- 13.1

The Camino de Santiago, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a network of pilgrimage routes converging on the shrine of Saint James the Greater in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The Camino Francés was traditionally the main route of this most important Christian pilgrimage during the Middle Ages. Thousands over the centuries have followed it as a path for spiritual growth, as penance, or to earn a plenary indulgence. By the 1980s pilgrims had dwindled to a few hundred per year, but in the last generation its resurgent popularity has attracted well over 300,000 annually.