Santiago de Compostela, verdict by verdict

Santiago de Compostela is the end of the Camino and feels like it: a granite old town built around one of Christendom's great cathedrals, full of arriving pilgrims, bagpipers in the Praza do Obradoiro, and a food culture running from the Abastos market stalls to serious Galician seafood restaurants.

The caveats are weather and scale. It rains often even in summer, since Galicia is Spain's green corner for a reason; the city is small enough that a day covers the core; and the cathedral is a working pilgrimage site rather than a museum, so mass times and pilgrim crowds shape any visit. There is no real nightlife scale and no beaches in town, with the coast an hour away.

What Santiago offers few cities can: watching walkers finish eight hundred kilometres in the square is a travel moment, and the whole old town carries the UNESCO listing. Two days is right for the cathedral plus its rooftop tour, the lanes, the market and one long seafood dinner, with a third for Finisterre or the Rias Baixas; anyone ending a Camino should keep a rest day before sightseeing. May, June and September balance lighter rain with pilgrim energy, and the trip pairs naturally with the Galician coast rather than standing alone for a week.