Author: Thom

Offered without comment. Date: 05 April 2016 Place: just past Villamayor de Monjardin (Navarra, Spain) The Day’s Map:

Navarra is one of the most consistently beautiful countries I’ve been to. This vista may be seen when descending from Villamayor de Monjardin. You can see the rich, red earth that provides a home for vineyards dating back to Roman times. The green hills are home to sheep, kept here by the Basques since before the Romans even arrived. There […]

Villamayor de Monjardin has a lovely monument to the Christian King who captured its castle and liberated the area from its Moorish occupiers. King Sancho Garcés was born in about 860 and seized the throne of Pamplona in 905, having married the former king’s granddaughter. Throughout his twenty year reign, he constantly enlarged his tiny kingdom at the expense of […]

This is the front of the local parish church in Villamayor, the twelfth century Iglesia de San Andrés. The interior, which we did not visit this time around, is rather plain, as it was “restored” from 1973 through 1984. This roughly coincides to a period I like to call “Neo-iconoclasm”. Date: 05 April 2016 Place: Villamayor de Monjardin (Navarra, Spain) […]

The Fuente de los Moros – the fountain of the Moors – is a twelfth century cistern located on the outskirts of Villamayor de Monjardin. While the construction that you see here is certainly of Christian construction, it is true that the castle on the hill above (seen on the left in the photo) was once an Islamic fortification. King […]

Seven months ago today, we entered the village of Azqueta and found no room at the inn. Well, technically, we found that the only place serving food – a dive called Bar Azketako – was entirely too busy to serve us elevenses. So we pushed on instead, hoping for lunch a bit further on. Date: 05 April 2016 Place: Azqueta […]

Somewhere after Irache, we lost Katy and Emilio. Francine and I pushed onward. Here in the background you can see Montjardin, with the ruined castle of San Esteban de Deyo perched atop. The Camino, meanwhile, wends its way through fields and small stands of trees. Eventually, of course, we would be heading at least partway uphill. I vaguely remember three […]

Between Estella and Los Arcos, there are a number of alternate routes, leading to signs like this. There are those who say that you don’t need a map to walk the Camino – just follow the yellow arrows. Well, I respectfully disagree. A good map is always valuable and well worth the weight of carrying it. Of course, not all […]

For All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead, it is perhaps appropriate that today’s photo is the entrance to the sadly defunct Irache Monastery. The structure is directly across from the wine fountain and dates to the middle ages. In addition to being a spiritual center and a pilgrim’s hostel, it was once an important center of learning, containing […]

Legend has it that at one point in the Middle Ages, an Italian noblewoman endowed a series of fountains on the Camino in Spain with one spigot for water and one spigot for wine. This is the only remaining one, at the Bodegas Irache. It was once operated by the nearby (but sadly defunct) monastery, but now is part of […]