EUROQUEST SideTracks

Few places are more transient than Santiago de Compostela - day in, day out, pilgrims from all over Europe walk through Porta do Camino and arrive at Praza do Obradeiro in front of Santiago's magnificent cathedral to finish weeks and sometimes months of pilgrimage. In addition, many tourists from around the world flock to Santiago to admire its monuments and to learn more about the pilgrimage route of St. James' way, the origins of which go back to just after the birth of Christ. And yet, because or may be inspite of the pilgrimage theme, Santiago is radically different from other, more traditional tourist destinations. It retains a special air of spiritual depth, peace, tranquility and an atmosphere unique to any place considered sacred. It all started with the Legend of St. James, the disciple who left the Holy Land to land on the shores of Galicia in what is nowadays Northwestern Spain to christianize these pagan lands. Only after he successfully slayed a dragon ...

High up in the Pyrenee mountains we find the Principality of Andorra - a miniature country of 75000 inhabitants famous for duty-free shopping and winter sports. While Andorra with its focus on commercial activity and lack of historic artifacts, may be a poor choice for visitors seeking local charm, history and culture, the adjacent town of LA SEU D'URGELL about 10 miles south in Catalonia, has all the ingredients of a perfect tourist destination and one that has to date been a well-kept secret hidden in the Pyrenees of Northern Spain.  While the region of Alt Urgell, just south of the border to France and Andorra, has traditionally been economically underdeveloped, La Seu was fortunate enough to have a savvy mayor in the early 1990s that managed to convince officials at the Olympics to choose the Segre river in La Seu for their water rafting and canooing competitions. What was to follow was the construction of the Segre Olympic Complex with millions of euros of invest...