TRAVELING IN STYLE : WALKING THE MILKY WAY : For Centuries, the World Has Trekked to the Remarkable City of Santiago de Compostela, in Spain’s Distant Galicia. Here’s Why . . .

I WAS SITTING ON the steps of the Portal del Perdon, the Door of Pardon, outside a small Romanesque church overlooking the town of Villafranca del Bierzo in the province of Leon, in the north of Spain. I was meant to be walking the ancient pilgrims’ route to Santiago de Compostela, but I had cheated twice already that day by taking buses. I had come to the right place: The door is called that of pardon because the church is where pilgrims have come for centuries if they have something to confess--or if they have walked part of the route and can go no farther.

The pilgrims’ route to Santiago de Compostela is one of the great mysterious European journeys, as famous and as well-traveled in medieval times as the routes to Jerusalem or Rome. Traditionally, it begins at one of four points in France--Vezelay, Le Puy, Arles or Paris--but it can be joined at any point along the way. (Its exact beginning in Paris was the church of St-Jacques-la-Boucherie in the heart of the city, of which only the former belfry, the famous Tour St-Jacques, now remains.) Although its main destination is the city of Santiago, the pilgrimage officially ends about 80 miles farther on, at Finisterre on Galicia’s western coast--which was the very edge of the known world until 1492.

The route brings to mind not the dark Spanish Catholicism of the Inquisition but an earlier Christianity, more in touch with pagan rituals and magic, indulgences and fear of the fires of hell. According to legend, the apostle James (Sant Iago in Spanish) preached the Gospel in Spain and then returned to Palestine, where he was martyred. When his body was recovered by followers, the story continues, it was shipped back to his beloved Spain (or, in another version of the tale, set adrift in a boat that then found its own way back). In fact, there is no evidence that James ever set foot in Spain--but in the early 9th Century, nevertheless, his relics were “discovered” in what is now Santiago, and later installed in a magnificent cathedral that was built on the spot.

Shortly thereafter, a constellation of stars is said to have led Charlemagne to Santiago (his journey is described in the 11th-Century “Song of Roland”). The pilgrims’ route has thus often been referred to as the Milky Way (most notably in Luis Bunuel’s satirical film of the same name, which makes fun of the pilgrimage). Indeed, it was once believed that “Compostela” was derived from the Latin campus stellae , meaning field of the star. Unfortunately for this theory, excavations in recent years have unearthed an ancient burial site, or compostum , under the city. The name thus has the same Latin origin as the modern term compost .

One book of the 12th Century, the Codex Calixtinus, a collection of texts about St. James and his worship, constitutes what has been called the first travel guide in history. It gives a vivid account of the variety of people and sights along the way, as well as practical hints about what to drink and where to stay. “Estella (is) rich in fine bread and excellent wine,” reads one entry, “as well as fine meat and fish. . . .”

By the 12th Century, rogues as well as the religious were making the pilgrimage. It guaranteed the traveler adventures, fresh pastures and, from France, at least four months away from home. As one contemporary source puts it, participants were drawn not only by their devotion, but also by “curiosity to see new places, to experience new things, impatience of the servant with his master, or children with their parents, or wives with their husbands.”

The pilgrimage also had significant historical effects: Churches, monasteries and inns grew up along the route, and towns grew up around them. And the constant movement of people between France and northern Spain established routes which could be exploited for commercial purposes.

The symbol of the pilgrimage to Santiago is a scallop shell. To this day, it is seen constantly along the route--cut in stone, forged in iron or simply drawn on signs. In earlier times, pilgrims returning from Santiago wore scallop shells on their robes as badges of their journey. Why a scallop? Some say that James used scallop shells in performing baptisms in Spain. Others note simply that the scallop is a common sea creature on the Galician coast--and that the lines of indentation on its shell converge in one point just as all the routes to Santiago converge. (Even now in France, scallops are called coquilles St-Jacques , St-Jacques’ shells--Jacques being the French form of James or Iago.)

The pilgrimage to Santiago virtually died out in the late 16th Century, after the relics of St. James were taken from the city to protect them from the marauding English fleet, hidden away and subsequently lost. In 1879, though, they were rediscovered and the pilgrimage resumed in earnest. Today, it seems to be gaining in popularity again. New pilgrims’ refuges--very modest inns, with simple sleeping accommodations and plain but hearty food served--are being built between the Pyrenees and Santiago; new guidebooks are appearing (among them an excellent one in English, “Northern Spain: The Road to Santiago de Compostela” by Michael Jacobs; see Page 40), and the signposts for much of the route have improved. The serious pilgrim--inevitably wearing a rucksack and carrying a staff--is provided with a passport that is stamped at each refuge along the way. Those who have walked more than 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) of the route receive a certificate called a Compostellana upon their arrival in Santiago and the right to a meal at the city’s luxurious parador, the Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos.

I was not likely to qualify, as I sat there on the well-worn steps of the Portal del Perdon, where all types of religious mystics and fanatics and medieval adventurers had sat before me. Even though I had only walked a few miles that day--and then taken two buses--my feet were sore.

I HAD BEGUN MY OWN PILGRIMAGE TWO days earlier, in the city of Leon, on a scorching hot Sunday morning in July. It was too hot for strenuous walking, I thought, so I began to explore the old city instead. At the church of San Isidro, I took a guided tour, most of which was dull. But then, near the end of the tour, we reached what must be one of the most beautiful sacred spaces in Spain--the Panteon de los Reyes. This is a cavernous 12th-Century room full of vivid frescoes. Some of them depict scenes from the New Testament, with Christ as the all-powerful figure in the center. Others show animals--cows, goats and stags. Still other frescoes are scenes from ordinary life: a man killing a pig, a man picking grapes, a man cutting corn. The colors are intense and alive, and the figures are surrounded by intricate, abstract designs. As I moved around, I kept noticing details, like the animals’ heads on the angels around the Christ figure, or the swirling blue-gray robes the Christ was wearing. Whoever did these frescoes must have relished the work and enjoyed adding these flourishes.

Outside, it was still sweltering. At the door of the church, two pilgrims had set down their rucksacks and staves and were sitting in the shade, looking weathered but nonetheless pleased with themselves. I walked past them, through the old quarter to Leon’s cathedral, reminded that soon I would have to set out, too. But the cathedral detained me for a while longer. A grand 13th-Century structure with soaring pillars and somber stone walls, it is built on a small hill, and its stained-glass windows catch the sunlight at a perfect angle. They are a symphony of splendid color, and I sat there bathed in their light for a time before going back to my hotel, collecting my rucksack and setting out at last for Santiago.

Alas, my fragile determination was to be interrupted one more time. On the way out of Leon, I passed a square in which stood an imposing Renaissance-era building. This turned out to be a hotel--the famous parador known as Hostal de San Marcos, once the headquarters of the Crusader Knights of St. James. (Paradors are government-subsidized hotels in Spain, many of them in converted monasteries, palaces and other important old buildings.) I went into the lobby and immediately felt a sense of cool comfort. To one side there was even a 16th-Century cloister, shaded and restful and nearly silent. This site has been a pilgrims’ rest stop since a refuge was built in the 12th Century, and it seemed a perfect place to stay. But I had only just started; how could I stop now?

Thus, overwhelmed by guilt and duty, echoes of my Catholic childhood coming back to haunt me, I left the hotel and walked on through the interminable suburbs of Leon and then along a busy road in the hot sun.

Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela should be warned: Some of the route is pure pleasure, passing through a quiet paradise of beautiful and fascinat ing countryside, and some of it is hell, passing along busy motorways, full of oversized long-haul trucks and fast cars. Here was the latter. This was no romantic pilgrims’ path, no untouched landscape. This was an unpromised land.

I walked for five hours, stopping only once to have a few beers in a small village bar and thus letting a lone fellow pilgrim, a German, get a good distance ahead of me. After the first hour or so of my trek, there was a rumble of thunder in the distant hills and then ripples of lightning in the western sky.

At the end of the day, as I was wondering whether to brave a roadhouse-cum-motel that lay ahead, I was lucky enough to come upon a railway station in the middle of nowhere and a train to take me to the city of Astorga. Here I found a good hotel, the Gaudi, and sights to behold in the morning--among them a 15th-Century Flamboyant Gothic cathedral and the 19th-Century Episcopal Palace, designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudi himself for the former bishop of the city, a fellow Catalan.

Around noon, I set out walking once more, cutting across open countryside to avoid the road. Unfortunately, as I learned when I stopped to ask directions at a house I passed, I had gone off in the wrong direction. I made my way back to the main road, where I found a motel, had a late lunch and phoned for a taxi back to Astorga. Here, feeling like a fool, and wanting to avoid the German pilgrim--whom I saw walking along the street--I went to the bus station and took a connecting bus to Villafranca del Bierzo.

THAT IS HOW I CAME TO BE SITTING ON the steps of the Portal del Perdon. It was now 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and this far north, in midsummer, that meant that there were five more hours of daylight. I could have walked down into Villafranca and checked into the parador, but, in marked contrast to the Hostal de San Marcos, this one looked too modern and not very appealing. And anyway, it was too early to settle down.

I checked my map and discovered that the next stretch of the route was along a busy road as well. As long as I was going to travel on a motorway, I thought I might as well hitchhike. Soon a car pulled up, and I climbed aboard. The driver laughed when I told him that I was doing the pilgrimage to Santiago. “Pilgrims are meant to walk,” he said.

He dropped me at the village of Pedrafita, just beyond the sign that marked the end of the province of Leon and the beginning of Galicia. Pilgrims who had come this way from France would now begin to hear the fourth language of their journey, having passed through the French countryside, the Basque region (where the unique Basque tongue is still widely spoken, especially in the villages), several Spanish-speaking provinces and now Galicia--whose own language, Gallego, is closer to Portuguese than Spanish.

The evening was mild and calm, with no clouds in the sky; it was perfect for walking. I knew that there was a pilgrims’ refuge on the route, which could be reached before dark, and that was my goal. Beyond Pedrafita, the view was wonderful. I was climbing all the time. Soon, I thought, the refuge would appear. Six kilometers more, then five, then four. A mist appeared over the nearby hills and slowly night began to encroach. I soldiered on like a good pilgrim. But it was getting more difficult: The road twisted and turned and visibility decreased. I looked out for a sign or a light in the distance but saw nothing. I marched on. It began to rain and soon the rain became hard. Now I concentrated only on the refuge, imagining a small cell with a clean bed, a hot shower and a simple dinner starting with hot soup.

At last I arrived--wet, hungry and tired, expecting a hero’s welcome--and feeling that I had now done penance for my hitchhiking and my taking of buses. I walked into a room full of tables packed with people who were indeed eating hot soup and steak and potatoes and drinking wine. I expected someone to greet me, praise me for my fortitude--but the waiter ignored me. When I finally got his attention, he told me brusquely that the place was full. I finally had to call another taxi, this time to take me down the mountain to Pedrafita, back the way I’d come.

Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela should be warned about this, too: Cheat, and the route will take its revenge.

The next morning was dull and cloudy, but it began to clear up as I walked back up the mountain. The gorse, in full bloom, sparkled yellow on the nearby hills. I stopped for a snack at the refuge from which I had been turned away the previous night. The sky in the early afternoon was blue, with clouds banked on the horizon. The road was narrow and there was hardly any traffic--and soon the route changed from road to lane, much like the lanes you find in 19th-Century English novels, with ditches on either side overgrown with ferns, blackberry bushes, clover and nettles. As I walked on through the hot afternoon, I met no one and heard no sounds except for bird song and the hum of an occasional tractor or other farm machine in the distance.

Wherever the lane diverged into two, a piece of yellow plastic tied to a bush marked the lane to take. For about 15 miles, the route moved along the ridge of a small mountain, overlooking a valley with small hills and then ranges of mountains on the horizon. Most of the time I had a panoramic view of the Galician countryside, which is not at all like the arid landscape of southern Spain. It rains in Galicia much of the year, which makes the fields as green as Irish fields.

Passing through a remote village, I was told that I could reach the next refuge, at Triacastela, before dark if I kept going. As I walked along, I had forgotten all the catastrophes of the previous few days. This was still hard, but it was pleasure nonethelessdownhill. I understood, as evening approached, some of the power of this route. You walk westward all the time, toward the setting sun, toward the end of the world. You feel as if you are going somewhere.

In the last hours of sunlight, the greens and yellows of the land seemed sumptuous, the smell of grass and clover was sweet and powerful, and it was a great happiness, for once, to be a pilgrim. Even so, the last half hour of my walk was agony for my feet and back. But then the rooftops of Triacastela appeared, and all the pain was nothing.

An old man I passed told me that there were two hotels in town and pointed out the better one. This place, my guidebook said, had been a pilgrims’ stop for more than 1,000 years. I was offered a small room with a bare wooden floor and a small iron bed. It was like a convent, and it was cheap. Dinner of soup, trout and white wine was even cheaper.

The man at the next table was French. He had been walking for 21 days, he said, and would be starting again at 8 in the morning. What time would I be starting? he inquired. “Eleven,” I said. “You’re lazy,” he remarked and shook his head. “Lazy?” I replied. “You don’t know the half of it.”

But both the lazy and the rigorous shared one goal: to be in Santiago, one way or the other, by the evening of July 24--the eve of the feast of Santiago. Most pilgrims take special pride in slogging out the last stretch of the route from Triacastela. I arrived on the afternoon of the 24th by train.

SANTIAGO IS INTIMATE, small-scale, easy to manage. There are no wide boulevards or fashionable quarters. The winding streets are narrow, and the old center is full of bars and restaurants. And despite warnings I had received to the contrary, it was easy to find a cheap room above a restaurant right in the center of town.

The city is built on a hill, and the maze of old streets is intricate. Most of the buildings are granite, many with huge, jutting bay windows on the upper stories. The bars and shops have that old-fashioned, decorous air that has been preserved in so many cities in Spain, that sense of the 1940s. But the old streets of Santiago are merely the veins and arteries leading to the heart of the city--the Plaza del Obradoiro and its magnificent cathedral.

The cathedral combines different styles of architecture, so that each of its three main doorways seems to belong to a different building. The most dramatic contrast is between the Obradoiro facade, from which the cathedral seems a massive Baroque structure with a double-ramp staircase, and the delicate Romanesque Portico de la Gloria, with its elaborate stone carvings--in one of which the sculptor, Master Mateo, depicts himself. It is as if the cathedral were an actor playing several roles in the same play, constantly changing masks and costumes.

As I entered the cathedral on the eve of the feast of Santiago, a Mass was being celebrated, but there was no one to stop tourists from entering. I stood inside, near an old confessional box where a priest was listening to a woman tell her sins (I could see his face), and marveled at the strange, soaring beauty of the place and the sense of power in the stone.

At one time in the distant past, the cathedral was open day and night--but it was subsequently closed between afternoon and morning after too many pilgrims began to misbehave within its hallowed walls.

One of the more pious of medieval pilgrims described the cathedral thus: “In this church there is no fault; it is admirably constructed, large, spacious, light, with harmonious dimensions, well-proportioned as to length, width and height; it is more splendid than words can express. It is even built on two floors like a royal palace.”

Outside, it was clear that this was one holiday not meant as a show for tourists but primarily to be enjoyed by the people who live here. The restaurants were full with whole families feasting on local seafood and the excellent local white wine Ribeiro, and the streets were full of locals. The outdoor bars were packed.

By 11 p.m., though, everybody seemed to have moved to the square in front of the cathedral. Excitement was in the air. Children were dressed up. Adults were jostling to get a good place. Soon, you couldn’t move. Then the fireworks began. For days, workers had been attaching them to buildings all over the square. I watched the first ones sweeping up into the sky, exploding into color; I cheered and held my breath with the rest of the crowd; I spun around in surprise as a huge new set of exploding colors were sent up into the sky from a building behind me. It went on for more than half an hour. The last fireworks were the brightest and strongest.

This was worth all the walking. And it was worth having cheated, having taken buses and taxis and trains, so that I could be here on time to see all this.

Santiago that night, after the fireworks, was one vast bar. It was warm and wonderful, and it looked as though it was never going to end. I seem to remember having my last drink at 6 o’clock in the morning.

AND THEN? WHAT DO YOU DO the following day when the shops are closed and the route has been covered, and you’re not quite sure how you feel?

There was one last thing on my mind. Officially, the pilgrims’ route did not end in Santiago, but on the Galician coast. Medieval pilgrims called the spot Finis Terrae, the end of the earth; today it is known as Fisterre in Gallego, Finisterre in Spanish.

I took the bus to Finisterre. When I got out, I found more people wandering through the village, following the pilgrimage to the very end. I walked about a mile myself, uphill through the village, to the coast. The hills were wild with gorse and heather, and when the sea came into sight, I saw fishing boats bobbing in the bay below, like toys.

At the top of the hill were two makeshift bars selling cold drinks, an old house now in ruins and then a magnificent lighthouse in perfect order, the stone cleaned and the paint fresh. Beyond that there was rock and scrub and a path leading down to the sea. I watched as the waves hit the point and crashed back, leaving a creamy foam in their wake.

In the 12th Century, a pilgrim might have stood there contemplating the deep blue sea and the flat earth and the brilliant sky, anticipating the homeward walk, with the setting sun at his back this time instead. He would still have had all those places to revisit, all the time in the world.

I turned and made my way down to the village beach and took a swim in the cold Atlantic. For me, the pilgrimage was over.

GUIDEBOOK: On the Pilgrims’ Path

Telephone numbers and prices: The country code for Spain is 34. Local area codes are given in parenthesis before each telephone number below. If calling from within Spain, dial 9 before the area code. All prices are approximate and are computed at a rate of 102 pesetas to the dollar. Hotel rates are for a double room for one night.

Getting there: Iberia flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Madrid twice a week, and there are daily connecting flights on American, United, Delta and TWA. Iberia has five flights daily from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela. In past years, Iberia has also flown once a week between New York and Santiago nonstop during July and August, but the airline has not yet announced these flights for 1993. Weekly charter flights will be offered next year by Spanish Heritage. Call (800) 221-2580 for further information. The Spanish luxury train Al Andalus will make three trips from Barcelona to Santiago, in 1993, departing Aug. 5, 12 and 19. Rates for the four-day, three-night round trip, including meals on board, begin at $1,670 per person, double occupancy. Al Andalus is booked through Abercrombie & Kent, (800) 426-7794. There is also regular train and plane service to Santiago from several Madrid and other Spanish cities.

Where to stay: In Leon: Hostal San Marcos (parador), Plaza San Marcos 7, telephone (87) 23-73-00, fax (87) 23-34-58. Rate: $170. In Astorga: Hotel Gaudi, Plaza Eduardo de Castro 6, tel. (87) 61-56-54. Rate: $85. In Santiago de Compostela: Hostal de Los Reyes Catolicos (parador), Plaza de Espana 1, tel. (81) 58-22-00, fax (81) 56-30-94. Catercorner to the cathedral, this palatial 16th-Century hotel is one of the most famous and luxurious hotels in Spain. Rate: $220. Also recommended: Hotel Peregrino, Avenida Rosalia de Castro, tel. (81) 52-18-50, fax (81) 52-17-77, a functional, relatively modern hotel near the entrance to the city, with a heated pool and many rooms offering views of the cathedral. Rate: $130. For information on pilgrims’ refuges and inns, contact the Tourist Office of Spain (see below).

Note: Next year is a “holy year”--a year in which the Feast of Santiago, July 25, falls on a Sunday--and as many as 2,000,000 pilgrims are expected to descend upon the city throughout the year. Hotel reservations will be difficult to come by in July, especially around the Feast of Santiago, and lodgings along the traditional pilgrims’ route will be more crowded than usual.

Where to eat: Don Gaiferos, Rua Nova 23, Santiago de Compostela, tel. 58-38-94; traditional Galician dishes in an elegant setting. There are many tapas bars, called tazas locally, specializing in fresh seafood and local wines, on and around Santiago’s Rua del Franco.

Recommended reading: “Northern Spain: The Road to Santiago de Compostela” by Michael Jacobs (Chronicle Books, $14.95).

For further information: Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., 960, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90211; (213) 658-7193. The office has brochures about the pilgrimage route, the city of Santiago de Compostela and Galicia in general, and on request may be able to obtain the extremely detailed “Guia del Peregrino El Camino de Santiago,” in Spanish only, published by Spain’s Ministerio de Transportes, Turismo y Communicaciones. Information on the pilgrimage is also available from the Confraternity of St. James, 57 Leopold Road, London N2 8BG, England.