Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

Arriving pilgrims spill into the Praza do Obradoiro and simply stop, packs still on, staring up at the tall baroque west front at the end of a walk that may have taken weeks.

Inside, the Romanesque nave is dim and solemn, worn smooth by a thousand years of hands and feet, and the swing of the giant Botafumeiro censer, when it runs, silences the whole church.

The surrounding old town is granite and arcaded, damp and green in the Galician way, and the cathedral anchors a warren of squares on every side.

Each of the four flanking squares gives the building a completely different face, so it is worth circling the whole block to see how the Romanesque, Gothic and baroque additions were stitched together over the centuries.

The Botafumeiro, the vast silver thurible that swings through the nave during some services, is one of the largest in Christendom, requiring eight tiraboleiros (bell-ringers) to operate its rope system and capable of filling the entire cathedral with incense-laden air.

The cathedral crypt contains the tomb of St James the Greater, his relics brought to Galicia in the 9th century according to tradition, and the apostle's silver reliquary beneath the high altar is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the Christian world.

It is one of Christianity's three great apostolic shrines and the destination that gives the entire Camino its meaning.

The building layers Romanesque bones, a famous carved Pórtico and a theatrical baroque skin into one continuous history.

The atmosphere of arrival — pilgrims, music, incense — is unlike an ordinary church visit anywhere in Europe.

The cathedral's baroque Obradoiro facade is the most visually arresting of its several entrances, but the interior reveals Romanesque and Gothic phases including the 12th-century Pórtico de la Gloria, its carved apostolate considered a Romanesque masterpiece of extraordinary refinement.