Spain · Old Town
Santiago de Compostela
A self-guided walking tour of the Santiago de Compostela Old Town, every street in one day.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Santiago de Compostela is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 23.9 km
- Time
- about 7 hours
- Streets
- 135
- Steps
- 13 streets with steps
- Start point
- Catedral de Santiago de Compostela
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Catedral de Santiago de Compostela 1,500 points
Go all the way round the outside before you go in. Each of the four sides opens onto a different open space, and no two of them look like the same thing was built twice. Whatever else is on this level, this is the main course, and I take my time over a main course.
Colexio de Fonseca 500 points
The outside tells you nothing, and that is deliberate. Behind that face is a small green court with water in the centre of it, open to anyone who pushes on the gate, and hardly anybody does. The quietest few paces on this level.
Mosteiro e Igrexa de San Martiño Piñario e Seminario Maior 500 points
You cannot get far enough back to take all of it in, and I suspect that was the plan. The way in sits below the level of the paving outside, because the town kept rising and the entrance did not. Come at it from the low side and look up the whole time.
Parador Hostal dos Reis Católicos 500 points
Four courtyards are folded away inside this one and you would never guess from outside. The frontage is long, grey and almost flat, and most walk past it because the thing behind them is louder. Give it a minute. It has been doing the same job for five centuries.
Praza do Obradoiro 500 points
The big open one. Nowhere else in this Old Town gives you enough distance to stand back and look, which is why almost everyone who gets here stops right there and puts their bag on the floor. Come at it out of a narrow lane and the space lands on you like a full plate.
Biblioteca Afundación Santiago de Compostela 250 points
A library anyone can walk into, and that is the whole of my recommendation. Go up for the reading room. Go in at all because it is dry in there, and I have been out in this weather for six hundred years.
Mercado de Abastos de Santiago 250 points
Long parallel halls of granite, laid out like a row of little chapels, and inside them the loudest and best smelling half hour on this level. Go in the morning. Go hungry. I cannot eat one thing in there and I go anyway.
Porta do Camiño 250 points
This is the bottom corner, on the eastern rim, where the Old Town starts. There is little to look at, and that is exactly why to stand here a moment: everything above you was put there for those who reached this corner on their own two feet and then looked up. Then climb. Every lane from here runs uphill, so this is the beginning of the meal rather than a stop along it.
Praza da Quintana de Mortos 250 points
Broad steps run right across it, and people use them the way other cities use benches. It is the plainest big space in town and the one that fills up after dark. Sit on an upper row with something to eat. That is what steps are for.
Praza da Universidade 250 points
A long straight face with columns across it, steps below that, and students on the steps at every hour a student is awake. The one open space here that looks drawn rather than grown. Everything else in this Old Town happened by accident and then stayed.
Eating
Actual food.
Everyone reaches this town tired and hungry, and the kitchen has never once been surprised by it. The rías sit a short way west and send mussels and octopus uphill. Farms on every other side send pork, greens, cheese and bread. Very little of it was invented for visitors. It is simply how Galicia eats, served at the end of a very long walk.
Meat and fish
Pulpo á feira
Octopus cooked, cut into rounds and laid on a wooden plate with coarse salt, paprika and olive oil. Nothing else. The name means fair style: dried octopus travelled inland to the market days, a long way from any sea. Add boiled potato and it counts as a different dish, which I find very strict of it.
Sources: Directo al Paladar, Diario de Santiago, Concello de O Carballiño
Lacón con grelos
The cured front leg of the pig, boiled, with turnip tops that taste as green as this region looks. The official specification calls it a fixed dish on Christmas Eve and on carnival Sunday across much of Galicia. I keep no calendar, so I order it whenever I like.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Mexillón de Galicia
Mussels grown on ropes hanging from rafts floating in the rías. The first four rafts in Galicia were licensed in 1946, and the protected name now covers five estuaries. Order them steamed and in a heap. The heap is the point.
Vegetarian
Tarta de Santiago
Ground almond, sugar and egg, and nothing that needs explaining. The rules ask for more than a third almond, more than a third sugar and more than a quarter egg. The top is white with icing sugar and carries the cross of the Order of Santiago. I respect a cake that signs its name.
Some come on a pastry base made with butter. Ask for one without if you would rather.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Queixo Tetilla
Soft cow's milk cheese shaped like a cone, pale, buttery and a little sour. The oldest letter to name it is from 1753, when a chaplain sent his lord three and a half dozen as a small token of affection. Three and a half dozen is not small.
The rennet can be animal. Ask at the counter if that matters to you.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Queixo Arzúa-Ulloa
A mild cow's milk cheese from the dairy country in the middle of Galicia, round with soft edges and a thin yellow rind. It smells of butter and yoghurt, with a little nut. It needs only six days to ripen, which by my standards is barely a pause.
The rennet can be animal. Ask at the counter if that matters to you.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Vegan
Pementos de Herbón
Small green peppers of the Padrón kind, picked unripe and fried whole in oil with coarse salt. The seed is said to have reached the Franciscan convent at Herbón from Mexico in the seventeenth century. Most are sweet. Now and then one is hot, and the local saying only promises that some are.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Pan de Cea
Wheat flour, water, salt and a piece of the last batch of dough. It is baked in granite ovens heated with wood, with a cut across the middle that makes one loaf look like two. The women who baked it are in writing from the thirteenth century, feeding monks. The crust fights back. It is meant to.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Grelos
The leaves and young stalks of the turnip, sown at the end of summer and picked through the winter. One of the two registered varieties is called Grelos de Santiago, so these are local by name. They are bitter in a way I find honest.
On a menu they usually come with the pork. Ask for them on their own.
Sources: Xunta de Galicia
Late breakfast
El Muelle the old one
Rúa da Senra 6
A café on Rúa da Senra since 1931, with a big window onto Praza de Galicia. People here have started the day at this counter for as long as the town remembers. The coffee still follows the founder's recipe and takes an hour to make, which is the first thing in town slower than me. There is a plate of the day, and vegan breakfasts too.
Sources: Guía Repsol, El Correo Gallego
Chez Boubou come for the one thing: the soft boiled egg in its shell
Rúa das Galeras 17
A French breakfast kitchen on Rúa das Galeras, with its windows onto the park. Tartines, crêpes, and an egg boiled soft in its shell, which is the dish to walk out here for. Much of it is homemade and organic, and there is plenty for vegans. An egg that arrives still in its shell is my idea of honest packaging.
Sources: Guía Repsol, Hule y Mantel
Nömada Café where locals go
Rúa da Espiñeira 2
A breakfast café in Santa Marta, a residential quarter a good walk south west of the Old Town. The owner has lived in Santiago since she was thirteen and went back to her Moroccan roots for the menu: msaman and bagrir with cream cheese or jam, baklava, croissants, and tea all morning. There are vegan and gluten free choices, and local artists show their work on the walls. Breakfast the way somebody ate it at home is a better reason to walk this far than any view.
- Mon08:00–14:00
- Tue08:00–14:00
- Wed08:00–14:00
- Thu08:00–14:00
- Fri08:00–14:00
- Satclosed
- Sunclosed
Weekdays only, and it closes at two in the afternoon.
Sources: El Español, El Correo Gallego, Galicia Confidencial
Afternoon coffee
La Flor the old one
Rúa das Casas Reais 25
A café on Rúa das Casas Reais since 1943, when the first owner opened it so his wife could feed the people stopping at the Porta do Camiño on the way to the fair. Behind the red doors today: old crockery, neon lights and patterned wallpaper. In the morning it is coffee and yoghurt cake, with red berries, chocolate or pistachio. Eighty years at one door is a short while for me, and a long while for a cake.
Sources: Guía Repsol, El Correo Gallego
A Porta Verde come for the one thing: the leeks in escabeche
Rúa do Hospitaliño 18
A kitchen that cooks only plants, in San Roque, just north of the Old Town. The owner reckons nine in ten people at her tables are not vegetarian, and neither am I: I eat streets. People come back for the leeks in escabeche and the potato bombs filled with kimchi. Much of the menu is gluten free as well.
- Monclosed
- Tue13:00–16:30, 19:00–23:30
- Wed13:00–16:30, 19:00–23:30
- Thu13:00–16:30, 19:00–23:30
- Fri13:00–16:30, 19:00–24:00
- Sat13:00–16:30, 19:00–24:00
- Sun13:00–16:30
From November to March lunch runs every day, but dinner only on Friday and Saturday.
Sources: Guía Repsol, Directo al Paladar, El Español
Eiquí Café where locals go
Rúa de San Pedro 17
Barely more than a hole in the wall, a few steps before the Old Town begins, with narrow counters along the sides to sit at. One person bakes, makes the coffee and serves, and many of the cakes are vegan. Most of the customers live nearby. It shuts for August, exactly when the visitors arrive, which I find admirably unbothered.
Closed at weekends and for all of August. The weekday hours shift, so do not count on a morning coffee.
Sources: Directo al Paladar, El Correo Gallego, El Español
Dinner
O Gato Negro the old one
Rúa da Raíña
The oldest tavern in the centre of town, on this street since 1922 and now run by the founder's great great grandson. Room for about forty. The empanada is kneaded and baked on the premises, and nearly everything else comes up from the market that morning. They take no bookings, which I read as a very old way of saying come early.
- Monclosed
- Tue12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Wed12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Thu12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Fri12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Sat12:00–15:00, 19:30–23:00
- Sunclosed
Sources: Guía Repsol, El Correo Gallego, El Español
O Testo where locals go
Rúa de Abril Ares 4
A small bar a few lanes from San Martiño Pinario, run by the cook of a restaurant further up the hill. Classic tapas with a new edge, and the market decides what is on the board as the season turns. Cooks from other kitchens come here to eat, which is the only review I trust. They take no bookings.
Sources: Guía Repsol, El Correo Gallego
Checked 13 September 2026.
Name origin
Why it is called Santiago de Compostela.
The second half of the name is the argued half. The popular reading is campus stellae, field of the star, and almost every scholar now throws it out as a late invention made to fit the name to the discovery story. What the etymologists prefer is compositum tellus, well made ground, or composta, a burial place, with a small ending stuck on. The word is in writing by 955 and takes another century and a half to settle. Well made ground. I do not know a better compliment.
Sources: xacopedia.com
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
Most towns pick a ford or a road. This one picked a grave. Romans were already living on this spot in the second half of the first century, a small place though not an unimportant one, with a large burial ground and a set of baths. Centuries after they left, a hermit out in the wood of Libredón reported lights over one particular patch of it, the bishop came to look, and the patch got a roof. Every lane here still radiates from that point. I prefer a town that grew around something to a town that grew along something.
Sources: xacopedia.com
Why then
When the first stone went down.
Around 829 somebody began building to cover the grave, with a king up in Oviedo paying for it, and the town assembled itself around that building. Not a market, not a mill, not a bridge: a roof over one hole in the ground. Twelve hundred years later that hole is the whole argument for the place, and people keep turning up for it. I have chewed through towns that started on worse.
Sources: xacopedia.com
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 829–1095
The kings, and from a long way off. Alfonso II, sitting in Oviedo, paid for the first small church over the grave, and his successors kept the money coming because a place people travel to is worth having. Nobody with a crown lived here. The decisions that shaped this town were taken in another town for two and a half centuries, which is a long time to be somebody else's good idea.
Sources: xacopedia.com; xacopedia.com
- 1095–1821
The bishops, and then the archbishops, and this time from inside the walls. The see had sat down the road at Iria Flavia until 1095, when it moved here for good, and in 1120 a pope declared Compostela an apostolic and metropolitan see, which is the churchly way of saying the argument was over. The man in charge of the diocese was also the lord of a territory called the Terra de Santiago, and the one who held the title from 1801 to 1821 turned out to be the last. Seven centuries. I was here for all of them and my opinion was never sought.
Sources: xacopedia.com
- 1982–
Galicia. A regional law of 1982 fixed the seat of the autonomous institutions here, and a second law in 2002 gave the point an article of its own, eight words long: Santiago de Compostela es la capital de Galicia. I approve of that. Most documents take a great deal longer to say a great deal less.
Sources: www.boe.es; www.boe.es
The emblem
What the shield means.
Not the shield. The city's arms are two halves at once: Galicia's chalice with its seven small crosses on one side, and on the other a silver cloud carrying the Apostle's urn with a gold star above it. Handsome. Completely unreadable at the size of a thumbnail. So the icon is the shell instead, which is the older badge anyway. People sewed one on to show they had got here, the way travellers to Jerusalem carried a palm, and the men who sold them worked the ground in front of the north portal, on what is now the Rúa da Acibechería. You will walk that one.
Sources: es.wikipedia.org; xacopedia.com
Emblem: Original artwork for Cobble Gobble — no third-party source
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The Old Town had a wall with seven ways in, and a twelfth-century guidebook lists every one of them. Six are gone. The Mazarelos gate is the one that stayed, and on this level both a square and a lane carry its name. The bigger circuit was begun under Bishop Cresconio, who held the see from 1037 to 1076, and its lines are what the medieval city then filled in. Walk the rim of this level and you are walking his outline with almost no stone left to prove it.
Sources: xacopedia.com
It rains here, properly. The national weather service records 1,787 millimetres in an average year at the station outside town, falling on about 139 days of it, measured across 1981 to 2010. That is more than a third of the year. Wet granite is the finest thing I have ever had underfoot, and a great deal has been underfoot.
Sources: www.aemet.es
The Old Town has been protected as a historic ensemble since 9 March 1940, the protected area was enlarged on 30 April 1976, and on 4 December 1985 the whole of it went onto the world heritage list. What that means underfoot is that the granite was never allowed to become anything else. Every lane on this level is made of what it was always made of, and that is the only kind of conservation I have a stake in.
Sources: www.turismo.gal; whc.unesco.org
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Rúa
- The plain Galician word for a street, and roughly half the names on this level open with it. Rúa Nova, Rúa Travesa, Rúa do Franco. Where two of them press together you get Entrerrúas, between the streets, which is a name I would have picked myself.
- Praza
- A square, and a praciña is a small one. Praza de Cervantes, Praza do Toural, Praciña do Franco, Praciña da Algalia de Arriba. There is even a Praza de Entrepraciñas, a square in among the little squares.
- Ruela
- A lane too narrow to be a rúa. Ruela das Ánimas, Ruela de Entrecercas, Ruela de Xerusalén, and the best address in Europe, Ruela de Sae se Podes: get out if you can.
- Costa
- Not a coast. A costa here is the climb. Costa Vella, Costa de San Francisco, Costa do Cristo. Three of them on this level, and which end is the top depends on where you came in.
- Fonte
- A spring, or the fountain somebody built on it. The Praza da Fonte Seca is the dry one, and then there are Fonte Sequelo, Fonte de San Miguel and Fonte de Santo Antonio. A town this wet still bothered to name its water.
- -ería
- The ending that names a trade. Acibechería for the people who cut jet, Caldeirería for the ones who beat copper, Praterías for the silver, Pescadería for the fish. Four names, four things somebody did here all day long.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Santiago de Compostela in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 135streets
- 1,293dots
- 19.7km of street
- 23.9km on foot
- 7hours at a stroll
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.