Explore Santiago de Compostela

San Martiño Pinario is a former Benedictine monastery facing the north side of Santiago Cathedral, once the second-largest monastery in Spain after El Escorial. Largely rebuilt from the 16th century and closed in the 19th, it now houses a seminary; visitors see its church with Baroque altarpieces and carved choir stalls, and rooms of the Diocesan Museum.

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral is the Romanesque cathedral at the end of the Way of St James, begun in 1075 over the tomb held to be that of the apostle James the Great. Its Baroque Obradoiro façade, completed in the mid-18th century, stands in front of the Portico of Glory, carved by Master Mateo in the late 12th century.

The Hostal dos Reis Católicos is a former royal hospital on the north side of Praza do Obradoiro, founded by the Catholic Monarchs to shelter pilgrims and built from 1501. It served as a hospital until 1953 and has been a hotel since 1954, now a state Parador; its long stone façade has a carved Plateresque portal.

Praza do Obradoiro is the main square of Santiago de Compostela's old town, in front of the cathedral's western façade, where pilgrims on the Way of St James traditionally finish. It is framed by the cathedral, the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, the Pazo de Raxoi, now the city hall, and the Colexio de San Xerome of the university.

The City of Culture of Galicia is a complex of cultural buildings on Mount Gaiás, designed by a team led by Peter Eisenman after a 1999 competition. Its stone-clad buildings rise from the hillside in curved roofs like folds of ground and house the Library and Archive of Galicia and the Gaiás Centre Museum, with walks and the Hejduk towers around them.