Category: Stacey

A heavy thunderstorm from 6 to 8 last night gave portents for today.  We put on all of the rain gear right away, but it only sprinkled lightly for the morning.

The Camino out of Villafranca follows the sinuous valley road between steep hills – or does the road follow the Camino – who was here first? Walking is along a concrete path separated from the road by a crash barrier for the most part, while a superhighway passes high overhead on pylons.  On the left is a gurgling trout stream, replete with No Fishing signs.  There is a slight climb, the rate of the trout stream.

There is an alternative ‘green’ route but it involves a couple substantial hills, and experience shows that these trails are rushing torrents after a rain, not to be attempted by aging seniors.

The first coffee bar at 5 km, 9 AM, is full, overheated, and too soon.  The next at 10 km, 10 AM, serves well for coffee and tortilla, and removal of the rain gear, now wetter inside with sweat than outside with rain.

We encountered a couple tiny rural churches that were open for pilgrims. And some rural cats, my favorite distraction.

By 1:30 we had covered our 19 km, and for the first time, felt like we could do more.  Our accommodation is a Casa Rural, basically a farm on the side of the road. The room on the third floor has a sloping ceiling that keeps tall people out of half the room.  It has lovely terrace overlooking an Irish green cow pasture with a small stream babbling its way through it. There is a stork methodically hunting his way through the meadow.  Did you know storks are carnivorous?  Why do they let them deliver newborn babies, then?

So, to a mid afternoon dinner on the terrace, in the sunshine, overlooking the cows.  To start, the bean and vegetable soup. At home Vic would make it with kale, here they used something that was probably tough before they boiled it, but now resembled green flannel.  But very tasty.  The main course could only be – trout, here small trout like my father used to catch. Now, small trout are not really a food source, but given their bone structure, just a rather tasty food that you poke around in.  The Vino de la Casa was excellent and had a label that could have only recently been on an inkjet.

Last night’s post was interrupted by an Internet failure, so to finish:

The gastronomic experience of the day came with our late afternoon meal.  The vino tinto was more the colour of prune juice, albeit thinner.  The label on the bottle suggested an ‘environmental agricultural’ establishment.  Possibly not enough insecticide residue to provide the appropriate colour.

Tomorrow (today now) is a scheduled rest day, so we will have plenty of time to see the churches and castle.  And to lick our wounds – although licking the soles of my feet is neither possible or desirable.

And Vic found a quilting store!

May 16, 2017

After a leisurely breakfast we struggled up the hill into town just in time for the setup of a small street market – a few veggies, plants and clothing. Vic bought a hat.

Then it was time to make a bee line for the quilting store. Not much on offer, but run by a very nice lady.

It was close to the first church into town, Iglesia de Santiago, the Santiago Church. This big stone 12th century church has a rather nice arched door in the north side with a unique capability. If a pilgrim is injured or sick enough that they cannot make it to Santiago, they may petition to enter this church through this door and they will receive their compostella, as though they had done it at the cathedral in Santiago. This tradition was confirmed by popes in the 15th and 16th centuries. There are enough restrictions that it doesn’t seem practical – it must be a holy year, distance, confession, and more. It is closed anyway.

The one church that was open was at the Colegiata de Santa Maria, the Iglesia de Santa Maria de Cluniaco. This was instigated by a warrior noble, but took many years to finish. It is mostly remarkable for its architecture.

.Four decidedly large columns support several arched domes of different designs. The ribs of the domes are granite, but the infill is made of tapered pieces of slate, instead of brick or carved rock.

The various altars and retablos are from different eras. The choir carvings are gated off but reputed to be well done. There are two organs. The lady caretaker regaled us for a long time on the features and history. She may have been lonely or just proud of her church.

She tells that there are three convents in town, one with 9 nuns, the others fewer. There are only two priests to administer the area, the elder at 77 seems to work an 18 hour day.

The other obvious item in town is the fort/castle, Castillo de Villafranca. A huge square of high walls with four enormous towers at the corners. It is privately owned. There was a modest compact car parked at the gate. I would have thought the owner would have had inside parking.

The forecast for today was warm and cloudy with a 30% chance of rain.  We rounded that down to zero and left our rain gear in the suitcases.

Since it was to be a 24 km day, and we have come to the realization that we are 18 km people, we took a taxi for the first 6 km.  We learned the lesson in walking out of Leon that there was no moral fibre to be gained by an extra hour of walking through city industrial areas.  We have already taken enough shortcuts to risk our time in purgatory anyway – another 6 km can’t make a difference.  That put us in Fuentes Nuevas, fresh and eager to tackle the countryside.

As we walked through the day the agriculture turned to vineyards, but with fields of individual vine stumps, not on trellises or wires.  Most were beginning to bud, or with a bit of growth, but showing signs of an earlier spurt, now dead.

At the time for morning coffee, we happened on an agricultural co-op bodega that was offering wine and tapas, our first of the day.  The wine area is known as Bierzo – look for it in your local wine outlet.

We had good luck with churches, finding several open today.  The retablos are less ornate than further east, and decoration runs more to statues of saints, and of the various manifestations of Mary.  Once again Vic is helping me with saint identification.

As the day progressed it got hotter, and the last hour took a couple hours – or it seemed like it.

Villafranca del Bierzo is a less typical Camino town, in that it has a number of streets, although the Camino does run down the middle.  It is built on a hill so there are a lot of up and down streets, and walking up and down is not easy right now.

The rain today wasn’t predicted until 3 so we left in cool weather gear with the rain gear in the packs. The church in Acebo was walled off and the only small gate access totally overgrown with weeds. Obviously the people of this town were worshipping somewhere else.

During the search in the next town, Riego de Ambros, for the 10:30 coffee bar (closed on Sunday apparently) we found an unlocked and unattended access stairway to the bell tower of the local church.  We got up there with the bells, but resisted the obvious impulse. 

The walk was downhill all day, mainly on bedrock trails. The last bit into Ponferrada was typical city walking – 18 km total.  That’s our limit.

Somewhere early in the day we saw a statue that looked like a rock with a rope around its neck.   Vic ruminated on that all day and decided it portrayed the local food delicacy, Botillo del Bierzo.  From then on nothing would suit her but to have it for lunch.

We eventually found a dining room offering it.  I had the cheaper Menu del Dia of meatball stuffed mushroom caps and a pork fillet in a pepper sauce.  It was great. Her delicacy was a fist sized hunk of meat in a sausage style casing.  It came with the apparently traditional accompaniment of a chunk of chorizo, boiled potato, stewed cabbage and garbanzo beans. The meat turned out to be (after Googleing it) the rib ends and tail and like pieces of pig, in a casing, and cured like ham.  A lot of bones and little meat.  Should have Googled it first. I call it “Bag of Hambones”.

The big attraction of Ponferrada is the Templar castle.  It was closed when we were here a decade ago.  Castles have strange hours.  I have never missed a chance to do a complete castle tour so we did this one too. It is a great castle in pretty good condition.  Has some good exhibits as well as the basic castle fabric.

The rain never materialized and it was sunny most of the day.  Back to shorts tomorrow if this holds.

We felt a lot better this morning after our rest day yesterday. Muscles and blisters feel healed.

Breakfast was the first curiosity.  In addition to the normal cafe con leche, orange juice, yogurt, cookies and cakes, we got a surprise offering delivered.  First, a large slice of toast with some kind of spread, a cheese layer, a slice of very thin ham, and a fried egg on top.  Secondly, a similar slice of toast with cream cheese, lettuce, raw onions, walnuts, and a drizzle of olive oil.  Raw onions!  We haven’t seen raw onions since we got to this country, and they come for breakfast?  A menu on the wall says that was the 10€ breakfast.  That is the price of a normal three course meal with wine!

The weather had improved on yesterday – still cold and cloudy, but no rain predicted until 3.  We packed a full set of rain gear, and wore cold weather clothes.  It wasn’t too long before we were down to wearing just cool weather outfits, and packing the rest.

The 350 m climb that we have been dreading for a year was not at all difficult and we arrived at the Cruz de Ferro before noon.  This is a small iron cross atop a rather large pole atop a large pile of rocks.  The tradition among pilgrims is to bring a rock representing your sins and leave it at the pile.  We carried not only our own rocks, but those of a number of other people.  The pile is pretty huge, but history suggests that it may have started in Celtic pre-Roman times.  Certainly most pilgrims are bringing the smaller rocks. Who brought the big ones?

Then off for the downhill  portion of the day which, at a thousand meters drop, is more than the uphill.  We only have to do half of it today.  The trail, which has been a hard packed mix of rock and sand (which pretty much passes as garden soil around here), on the downhill eroded sections is missing the sand and is only a jumble of broken rock.  It would be very easy to turn an ankle in that stuff, so going was slow.  Going downhill exposes a whole different set of muscles and sore spots.

The hillsides and the shoulders of the path are covered with blooming heather, gorse and broome in various colours.  There are many tiny wild flowers as well.  They would be lovely if I could smell them.

With about a km to go it started to sprinkle rain – but not serious enough to get us wet.  With about 200 m of serious downhill to go, it started to rain in earnest.  So there is the dilemma  – do we take the time to put on rain gear over damp clothing (getting damper in the process) or tough it out knowing that there is a hotel room 10 minutes away.  Well obviously we opted to get wet. Quite.

Acebo is the prototypical Camino town – how many more of those can I list?  300 m long, and only one street, single lane width, optimistically designated the N142, running the length. There is one very short side street, and we are on it – third doorway in. It is a town that is effectively two houses wide – one on either side of the N142, with their balconies almost touching.  In medieval times the town was exempted from taxes if it maintained the snow poles over the pass.

Our  hotel is a Casa Rural, essentially a bed and breakfast of three rooms. The medieval stone shell is wonderfully outfitted inside by someone skilled in millwork.  It is run by a delightful gentleman who speaks a half dozen languages.  It seems a lovely place to stay.

He allowed that his back yard neighbour ran a good dining room, so we went there for our late lunch.  The Menu del Dia was only 10€, cheaper than most.  We started with the normal vine tinto – red wine.  It normally comes in a bottle with the cork removed and stuck back in.  Here we got a large glass flagon of wine that had a head on it.  But wine.

The English menu read:

Beef

Pork

Chicken

Fish

All plates are garnished.

I had a thin soup and some well stewed chicken and good chips. Vic opted for the fish as that has proven acceptable in the past.  She got a couple fillets of fish and chips and that was all.  No slice of lemon or sprig of parsley, or even salt.  So much for garnished.  She had lemon mousse, which she pronounced good,  so maybe that is where the lemon went.  I had my first piece of Santiago cake.  We are getting closer to Santiago!

The 15th century town church is further along than we have ventured, but we’ll see it on our way out of town tomorrow.  It was a 17 km day, strengthened by the significant ups and downs.  Tomorrow is mostly downhill.

Well, we took a day off walking today.  We looked at the long climb tomorrow (that we do want to do) and decided that a long walk today before it would be too much.  That, and it was raining still.  We called a cab for later in the morning.

I took the time to run over for another look at the Gaudi designed Bishop’s Palace. It is amazing the attention to detail that Gaudi put into his designs.  The place is a museum now, full of carved saints rescued from churches in the area.  I don’t think the bishop ever lived there.

The taxi took us, along with Jennie, the Australian  woman we have been spending time with, to our hotel in Rabanal del Camino. Her husband opted to do the walk, and did it in four hours.  It took the cab less than 20 minutes. When you are in the front seat of a Spanish cab, objects on the horizon get larger much faster than if I were driving.  There were many obstacles on the narrow road at times – pilgrims in ponchos, pilgrims on bicycles and none of them seemed to worry the cabbie.

Rabanal del Camino is another Camino town stretched out for a few hundred meters along the track.  There was a Templar presence here in the 12th century to ensure pilgrims safe passage over the mountain area to follow.  The hotel is just another of the rock walled buildings along the row.  We have a very small room, but the bar and dining room are quite nice.

There appear to be two churches in town.  The newer, with 1733 scratched on its wall, was closed.  It may be an albergue at times.

The other, a very old Romanesque design, is right across the way from the hotel.  It has been taken over by a group of Benedictine monks from Bavaria, who run it and a small albergue nearby.  The church is exceedingly quaint, well suited to the monks. As well as normal masses, they hold lauds, vesper and compline services for the pilgrims.  We both attended the vesper service and Vic was asked to do a reading, as a result of demonstrating some religious knowledge to one of the monks. Three monks and several local people sang the service in Latin – the old way that Vic remembers from her youth.  The old church was just the right setting for their singing.  Vic also went to the compline service which includes a Pilgrim’s Blessing.  After doing the reading at vespers she also wanted the blessing.

The TV weather this morning showed all of Spain under rain clouds.  It was just spitting lightly when we started, but it only took 50 meters to realize that we needed full rain gear.  With raincoat or poncho and waterproof pants, rain is not that uncomfortable.  There was however an unremitting cold west wind that turned a poncho into a kite.  The rain quit by 10, reducing the need for pants, but the wind never let up.

There were a few ups and downs on the trail indicating that we are coming to the end of the meseta flatland.  We came across one of ‘The Places On The Camino’, David’s la Casa de los Dioses ❤ Cantina.  This guy lives in an old farm, not much more than adobe fence walls, and provides free food (and I think philosophy) to passing pilgrims.   He had all sorts of stuff out including freshly cut pineapple, watermelon, apples, oranges, cookies, figs, hard boiled eggs, everything, including a shelter with a fire for this weather.  There were a couple dozen people there taking it in.  He did have a donations box, but it was not obvious.  One of the sights of the Camino.

We arrived after 18 km at Astorga, located on a ridge, testing our stamina.  Astorga is market town of about 12,000.  It was at a significant Roman crossroads, and later became important on the Camino as a place to build up strength for the climbs to come (!).

The  hotel turned out to be one of those marble lobbied places that we sullied with our boots and poles.  They must cringe to see us come.  Three desk staff in natty dress contrast with the hotel of two days ago with a lobby staff consisting of a cheap intercom voice from wherever.

After settling in (and changing socks), we headed for the sights of the city. The cathedral is most prominent.  It was started in 1471, but has suffered much rebuilding since.  The west facade  carvings from 1704 are said to resemble a baroque retablo, much of it still in very good condition.  In the interior, “for such a small cathedral, the naves are unusually high”.  It has a number of side chapels, each with an impressive retablo.  The choir stalls are beautifully carved in walnut and the organ has over 2000 pipes.  Despite the rebuilding, it gives me the impression of a finished, unified whole.  They also have an excellent museum attached.

Beside the cathedral is Iglesias de Santa Marta – a small church apparently with works of note but lost between the cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace.

The palace was designed by Antonio Gaudi and in impressiveness competes with the cathedral.  We toured it when we were here a decade ago, but passed it up this time for lunch.

This time we forwent  (past tense of forgo – look it up – I had to) the seedy pub approach and picked an up-market looking restaurant that it appeared real Spanish people were entering.  To start Vic had thick leek soup and I had a plate of garbanzo and stewed cabbage.  We both had trout again, this time poached in a flavored sauce.  Vic had her creme caramel and coffee, and I had my cheesecake.  All this with a full bottle of red wine for €25, about $37C total .  Without the compunction to tip.  The wine alone in Canada would cost near that.  It almost pays to come to Spain for a meal.

Then we wandered around town until the rain drove us in.

So, there have been questions on blisters.  The one I got first never has caused a problem – it appears to be more a sheet of skin coming loose from the bottom of my foot, as opposed to a weeping painful blister.  I got anther tiny, tiny one on my big toe that was really painful, until drained with a band aid on it.  All good now.  I think I should have taken a chance on my old worn out shoes, rather than get new ones.  Although they were no longer waterproof, and that may soon become important.

Vic however continues in her normal fashion with a blister on nearly  every toe, and possibly a loosening another nail.  At least she is used to this condition by now. It was my long held contention that her shoes were too small, and that larger shoes would cure the problem.  I was wrong.  In my defence I will say larger shoes haven’t made it any worse.

The trails are to get worse as we enter the mountains.

After yesterday’s long hike along the highway, we thought we would try the parallel alternate route three or four kilometers to the south.  To get there we needed to get the surly bartender that we had been giving so much trouble to, to order us up a cab. That went far better than expected, as he was just as happy to get rid of us.  We were soon on the other Camino.  It proved to be a flat and unchanging small road but at least without the big trucks.  We arrived in Hospital de Orbigo about noon.  This hotel proved to be far more hospitable than the last.

After wandering around the tiny town we settled on what looked to be a seedy bar for a cheap lunch.  The bar opened up into a lovely dining room that served us a wonderful dinner of fried trout, among the best meals we have had.   And it was still cheap.   Not judging books by covers and things.

The town is named for a Knights of Saint John hospice that was located here, but has been gone for centuries.  What the town is known for is the large 16 arch stone bridge over the river Orbigo (and  over its flood plain) and the events that occurred here.

It is the location of the last significant medieval jousting tournament.  In 1434 a Leonese nobleman, one Suero de Quinones, who had been scorned by his lady, vowed to wear an iron collar and challenge the best lances in Europe on the bridge to win her favour.  King Juan II promoted it through the kingdom, and noble knights from all over Europe flocked in to have go at him.

The tournament began on July 11, 1434, two weeks before St. James Day in a holy year, when the Camino was flooded with pilgrims.  The tournament continued until August 9th, when Suero declared that since he had worn the iron band, and broken 300 lances, he had proven himself to the lady.  He then proceed on a pilgrimage to Santiago.

All of this was recorded in detail by the town notary, (some say the scribe of the King) which is why we have this record.

Did he marry the lady?  Ah, it doesn’t say here. He did marry Doña Leonor de Tovar, who may have been the lady in question.

Anyway 24 years later he met one of the knights he had defeated who was still vengeful, had a joust and died.

Well, that is the romantic version.  The Wikipedia article says he only wore the collar on Thursdays.  What’s up with that?  The Spanish Wikipedia says he was assassinated by the squires of a knight he defeated, not the knight himself.

A recent second look at the manuscripts suggested the he did not ‘break the 300’ spears, but since he did confront 68 adversaries, the judges gave him a pass mark, and allowed him to stop.  He also did not do it single handed, he had nine followers helping.   The review also suggests that the Franciscan priest who prepared the manuscript for publication a century later embellished many of the facts.  The original is lost. There are said to be five copies existing of the Franciscan’s version.

But, despite all that, the story is a classic of chivalry in the late medieval period.  True Arthurian stuff.  They still apparently do reenactments, as the jousting lists are visible out our window on the original site.

Leaving Leon – 310 km to Santiago!

As we left Leon we stopped by the Basilica de San Isadoro, a 11th century Romanesque complex.  The whole thing is worth hours of tour, but of particular note is the altar mayor, a complex of 24 painted panels on the life of the Virgin from 1522.  Also to be noted are the  carved capitals.  The book goes into much greater detail on the rest of the art.  Not to be missed, second only to the cathedral.  But we were on a walking mission, and it took an hour and a half to walk to the edge of Leon itself.

Once again the Camino splits into a scenic route and a quicker one.  We opted for the quicker one, since our pre-booked hotel was on that route.  We could have taken the other one and taxied over.

Unfortunately, the direct route takes the same route as the highway, so again a 20 km day of walking by a highway. Towns along the way were not notable; churches modern, but on old sites.

So at about 2:30 we arrived at the designated hotel. It is an imposing new 3 storey structure on the edge of a large truck stop.  Up the front steps, and the door is locked.  There are a number notices in Spanish plastered around that don’t help at all.  Pressing an intercom button got a response in the usual unintelligible intercom voice, but even more unintelligible  in Spanish.  We finally deciphered that he wanted our name, but providing that didn’t help.  He finally gave up, and buzzed the door open.  The lobby was totally vacant except for our luggage, but there were 20 or so room keys on the counter, accompanied by the same unintelligible  intercom voice.  Just pick a key, maybe?  While we were dealing with that dilemma, a cleaning girl showed up.  She apparently could understand the intercom, as she gave us a key from the selection, and motioned us off.  After prodding, she told us where to get breakfast, and showed us to the room. We seem to be the only people in this huge building, aside from the cleaning girl.  All very unusual, as most Spanish hotels want at least one, and often two, passport details; meticulously noted.  Here we had a room provided by a voice that could have been on the moon.

We wandered over to the designated breakfast place/bar next door.  It defiantly was the truck stop bar portion of the complex, but it appeared to have a dining room as well, apparently entered through the kitchen.  By now it was 4 PM and well into Spanish lunch time so we opted for the meal of the day.  Salad, paella, and excellent grilled fish (and the normal bottle of red) made a great meal.  The bill came to 80€ – $120!  More careful reading of the bill revealed that included the room rate.  The argument then became whether he should get that money from us or our travel organizer.  We paid for the meal only, on the understanding that the travel company would clear it up by morning.  It has all been very unusual.

We are back in our familiar hotel in Leon where Vic recuperated last year.   They recognized us. So easily comes fame.  It goes by the name of O!H.  Not a typo. Go ahead, pronounce THAT for a Spanish taxi driver when your wife is sick.

Sleep last night was difficult, as a group outside the bar across the (very narrow) street had an extremely loud, animated discussion until past 1:30.  Probably they were discussing atomic physics or relative merits of modern art or something.  Was alcohol involved? Very probably.

Building on yesterday’s hike, today was another 19 km day.  I think we are hitting ‘the wall’ sooner, not getting stronger.  What, you think only marathoners can hit a wall?  Slow walkers have walls.

By comparison, Lafitte, a priest that did the pilgrimage in the late 1600s, AVERAGED 40 km a day.  And he had to find his own way (no yellow arrows or maps), find food and lodging (no guidebooks), say mass every day (no comment), and he was carrying his own luggage and probably wearing sandals.  Gives you a lot of respect for medieval pilgrims.

It was a pleasant walking day though – not too hot, and no rain.  Just a bit dreary scenery, with much walking alongside highways and through industrial areas.  We have seen a lot of car dealerships.  Coffee stops were not entirely where we wanted them.  

We saw a couple interesting stork nests, with young at this time of year.  The nests are huge and balanced on building tops, and if they fell down they would cause serious damage.

Leon is familiar enough by now that when we were routed off the Camino by a TV production crew we were able to take back streets straight to the hotel.  Another city conquered.