Hi, how are you? It is Friday, September the 18th, and I am on Plaza Quintana, which is the square behind the cathedral, and today I was thinking of walking a different route. I know I’ve been walking up Rua Nova and down Rua de Villar in the last videos. Today I’m thinking of walking to a different church, and you say, why is that? And it has to do with something that the cathedral posted on their website yesterday or the day before, and that is that the Pilgrim’s Mass will, starting October 16th, temporarily move out of the cathedral and into the Church of San Agustin.
So it seems like they are doing a restoration in the altar of the cathedral so that they can’t do any Masses there, have any Masses. So Pilgrim’s Mass will move starting October 16th until further notice to San Agustin, which is a different church, which is the one that is next to the market, if you know about that one. I’m thinking let’s walk over to San Agustin and so we can have a look, first of all, where it is and what it looks like inside.
If it’s open we’ll go inside. So that, so I guess they’re fixing up the cathedral for a whole year. First it was the Botafomeda that was swinging in, now it’s the Pilgrim’s Mass that are being held in this new place.
So in San Agustin, starting October 16th, will be Pilgrim’s Masses at 9 30 in the morning, at 12, and at 7 30 at night. The cathedral will still be open for those wanting to visit, and you can walk around inside the cathedral, you just can’t, you just can’t, you just can’t have any Masses. So you can still go in and visit, but Pilgrim’s Mass will be at this new place.
So I don’t know if you know where this is, this is where you come in, on the left hand side you come in from Camino Frances there, and you walk down where I just walked up, down to the square. So to get to San Agustin you just have to go down the right hand side there of this little church that’s on this square. And by the way, a Pilgrim favorite, Casa Manolo.
This is a place to have lunch, they give you huge portions, it’s usually a long line just before two o’clock when lunch opens up, of Pilgrim wanting to have a meal there. Let’s go down to the market in San Agustin. So there it is, that is the church at the end there, San Agustin, where the Pilgrim’s Mass will be held now in the next, in the days after, following October 16th.
Otherwise, I can see weather-wise, it’s kind of grayish, but the weather is going to change tomorrow, tomorrow we’re going to have the heat come back, it’s going to be almost 30 degrees. And this is the market for those of you that know where this is in Santiago, the various stalls and everything here. All right, so in other news, there was also a mention in the paper yesterday that the church here in Santiago, in the cathedral, is trying to get the Pope of course to come to visit in Holy Year 27.
So I don’t think they have anything to announce yet, but there’s talk about the Pope coming. They were saying in an article that it was probably going to be 2027, which is next year, Holy Year, or if that fails, 2028. So I have a feeling it’s going to happen, one of those next couple of years.
It’s going to be another visit by the Pope, which is of course, it’s a big thing for the church here in Santiago, and it brings a lot of visitors to the town as well. So there. Pilgrim numbers.
I have to admit that I walked out of the office this morning doing this video and I forgot to check the numbers. What I’ll do is I’ll put up on the screen, the first number I’m going to circle is the number of compostelas that we’ve given out so far this year. It’s going to be 400 and some thousand, I think.
So that’s the number that has been circled now. It’s the number of compostelas we’ve been giving out this year. And yesterday we got this much, many compostelas given out, and this is an increase about probably six or seven percent from last year.
I think it’s been a steady flow of pilgrims. I’ll give you maybe next week, because it’s been a few weeks now without too many numbers mentioned here. I’ll see if I could for next week do a video with more numbers and percentages of various caminos and all of that, just so you have an idea.
So I was thinking, let’s see if I can get into San Agustin. I think the door is open there. I will not talk at all in there, just walk around with the camera so you can get an idea for what San Agustin looks like inside.
It’s a beautiful church. It’s big though. I think that’s why they’ve chosen this one, because it has a lot of seating.
The other churches are smaller and it’s probably going to be more difficult to fit a lot of people in there. But let’s have a look inside San Agustin. This lady on the left there, she’s not screaming, she’s just talking very loudly.
And she’s been like that forever. All right, I didn’t know there was a mask going on in there, otherwise I would have shown you more of the church inside. But when the mask is on, I don’t want to disturb people.
So with that, I am going to walk back to the office from this end. I’m going to be passing some streets that you probably haven’t seen on this video, on this channel before anyway. But anyway, hope things are good where you are.
Stay safe. One of the few bakeries in town in front. This is a great place to have some lunch or have some coffees.
It’s in the intersection of five streets, intersection one, two, three, four, and then five from where I’m coming from. And these guys, they have paste fish during the colder months, and then in the summer they have ice cream.
