Why on Earth is this inscribed as a separate site from Santiago de Compostela itself? So little of visual consequence was the UNESCO Web site apparently able to find along the route that it even uses a picture of the Cathedral at Santiago to introduce it! And then, of course, France has inscribed its part of the pilgrimage route separately (see my review) – making a total of 3 “Compostela” inscriptions in all.

I would not argue against inscribing the pilgrimage route. So significant was the journey and so long did it take that it is studded by buildings created to support the pilgrimage but by splitting the objective from the journey (and by splitting even that into 2) UNESCO and Spain/France have, in my view, belittled the totality. And for what – political reasons no doubt? Yet the entire route in both France and Spain has been designated as the first “European Cultural Itinerary” so cooperation was achieved in that case – why not in UNESCO? Spain’s policy regarding WHS nominations has always been to “share out” its sites across its Autonomous Regions and the Compostela Route gives 5 of them a “share”. (Interestingly the 3 regions making up the Basque autonomous community of Euskadi are alone, as of end 2005, in having no inscribed site - it is said that the Basques have not, for political reasons, participated in the Spanish nominating council). The French Compostela route lists 69 selected buildings out of a possible 800 but the Spanish route follows a policy of inscribing the entire contiguous route from the 2 French frontier points to Santiago (and a 30 metre strip on each side!). This caused ICOMOS some problems (“It is difficult to evaluate given the criteria set out in the Operational Guidelines for the evaluation”) - but “guidelines” can always be ignored changed after the event if the political will is there!

If you reach Santiago de Compostela overland from the East you will almost certainly have followed part of the route. However, unless you are doing the journey as your own personal pilgrimage, you are unlikely to stop off at more than a few of the many pilgrimage related sites (the inscription mentions that there are “some 166 towns and villages ….and 1800 buildings along the route”). Santiago is a long way west of the main tourist areas of Northern Spain but the Spanish part of the route commences far to the east on the French frontier and we drove that part out of the foothills of the Pyrenees from Jaca to Estella past the 11th century bridge at Puente la Reina (photo). We then left it to follow the coast and visit the Picos de Europa rejoining at Lugo (also a WHS for its Roman walls) for the final part to Santiago. I remember the enormous Spanish horizons and speeding past the small groups of pilgrims dressed in monks habits walking the entire route.

Clearly we left a very large part of the Spanish route “unseen” but, if we do one day return to this area, I am afraid it will be to see the WHS at Burgos and San Millan rather than to follow more of the pilgrimage route.