The Camino de Santiago does not exist as a single route; there are many. Every year, hundreds of thousands set out on the journey to the tomb of the Apostle James in Santiago de Compostela, northern Spain. However, pilgrims have been coming for nearly a thousand years via various paths that can essentially begin anywhere in the world. Several million are even counted during the so-called holy years. This occurs whenever the Feast of St. James on July 25 falls on a Sunday, as it did in 2010. The pilgrims of St. James have considered Santiago de Compostela, alongside Rome and Jerusalem, one of the three most important pilgrimage destinations in Christianity, and their routes were designated as the first European Cultural Route in 1987. Historical evidence of these paths can be found in travel reports from the Middle Ages, where the described roads often coincided with ancient trade and military routes.