A scallop shell, the emblem of the Camino is a symbol that all roads lead to Santiago.

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But sometimes, when things go wrong, it can lead you away - to elsewhere, exploring places like A Toxa, an island idyll

south of Santiago.it has a unique treasure: a chapel gleaming like mother-of-pearl, completely covered in thousands of scallop shells.

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People gather before its doors, some bow to read names and dates, prayers for healing, while others kneel, writing new

entreaties over old.
 
 

From the porch, I lift a leaflet which tells me this twelfth-century chapel is dedicated to the little-known San Caralampio and

the Virgen Del Carmen, patron saint of fishermen.

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The porch opens onto a simple nave, a crisscross vault, whitewashed walls inlaid with ships timbers - a place fishermen

would feel at home.

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Behind the altar, a small figurine set within a vertical shell shows the Virgin stands like a variant of Botticelli’s Venus Rising. 

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I sit near the front, where my eye is drawn to a stained-glass Saint James. But this Saint James seems far from otherworldly.

A fierce face that wouldn’t suffer fools, reminding me of a conversation with a Scottish Pilgrim beneath a similar window in Burgos. ‘He’s my kinda saint.’ He said. ‘Not gazing off into the middle distance as if he’s about tae swoon.’

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He wasn’t wrong. This James could easily double as a Calvinist Scot, as ready to swing a sword as staff. A real ‘Son of Thunder’.

Someone sits behind me and brings me back to the present.