🌿 Celts, Bagpipes and Witches:
The Ancient Soul Between the Stones
I arrived in Santiago many years ago, officially for a postgraduate course — but with a heart open to surprise. Galicia was unfamiliar to me. I had never stepped on its soil, tasted its bread, or looked into the eyes of its people. But something about its name — Santiago, Compostelana, Celtic — already sounded like a spell.
It only took one walk through the old town to realize I had fallen under an enchantment. This isn’t an ordinary city. The worn, damp stone buildings seem to whisper in low Galician. The cobbled streets twist with a secret logic, as if only the city itself knows where each turn leads. Some corners feel like you might run into a pilgrim… or a witch.
And then — the bagpipe.
I didn’t know Galicia had its own version. I didn’t know such a cousin of the Scottish bagpipe existed. But one ordinary day, turning an ordinary street, I heard it. I closed my eyes and didn’t know if I was in Galicia, Ireland, or another time. The sound of the Galician gaita is sweet, nostalgic, and hypnotic. As if someone from long ago was calling you back.
That’s when I learned about Galicia’s Celtic roots — its mysterious link with Ireland and Scotland. Some say there’s an ancient path that connects those lands — not just geographically, but spiritually. They say myths aren’t only told… they’re walked.
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I was lucky to be there in July, for the Feast of Saint James on the 25th. But on the night before, July 24th, I witnessed one of the most overwhelming spectacles of my life: the Praza do Obradoiro filled with people, emotion in the air… and then, the sky exploded. Fireworks, projections over the baroque façade of the cathedral, music that wrapped around everything. A show of light and shadow that felt like a tribute to gods, ancestors, and pilgrims all at once. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. It was like standing inside a mystical revelation scented with gunpowder and applause.
And of course — the cathedral.
The Cathedral of Santiago needs no introduction, but it does demand reverence. Immense, majestic, mother of all roads. There I saw, for the first time, the botafumeiro swing through the air — an enormous incense burner that moves like a sacred pendulum through the nave. A curious fact I learned: its original purpose was much more practical than I imagined. The botafumeiro was used to mask the smell of pilgrims arriving after weeks or months of walking. A mix of incense, smoke and devotion still lingers in the air.
My dearest memories are not great feats. They’re chords, scents, gestures. The light rain that never really bothers. The pulpo a feira. The Galician spoken by grandparents in small cafés. The unexpected singing of a student choir in full costume crossing the square. The University Tuna of Santiago — that’s the name I had forgotten — dressed in black capes with guitars, looked like they stepped out of another century. And you didn’t know whether to laugh, dance, or stay completely still in case the moment shattered.
One night, while dining with my group at a small bar, we could hear a distant concert. It was La Oreja de Van Gogh performing in Santiago. What a time that was… one of those moments you don’t plan, but that stay with you like a gentle tattoo.
Ah — and a final detail I’ll never forget: I entered Santiago through Lavacolla airport. That name alone felt straight out of a novel. But it turns out “Lavacolla” comes from the old tradition of pilgrims washing themselves in the nearby stream before entering the holy city. The original meaning referred, quite directly, to washing a specific body part… and although softened over the centuries, the Galician spirit has never lost its mix of myth and earthiness.
Santiago isn’t a city you walk through.
It’s a city you let enter you.
Because some places aren’t discovered by walking — but by feeling.
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